Mauritius Seeks
Investors In Agriculture
Mauritius
says it is seeking investors to buy into a plan to lease
farmland in Mozambique to ease growing food security worries on
the Indian Ocean Island.
Financial Secretary of Mauritius' Finance Ministry, Ali Mansoor,
said the government of Mozambique is proposing to lease the
government of Mauritius some 23,500 hectares of land.
A meeting of potential investors is scheduled for February 2nd
in Mauritius, to discuss the projects and the way forward.
Mansoor did not say how much the land would cost.
Mauritius intends to grow crops such as wheat, rice, pulses,
maize, onions and potatoes on mainland Africa.
Food prices worldwide have eased from their record levels of
2007 and 2008 when they helped push inflation on the
import-dependent island to the cusp of double digits.
Mansoor said Mozambique would only lease the land to locally
incorporated companies.
’’We are talking of land which is unexploited and we are
planning to work out a scheme to give local stakeholders a 10
per cent share in the projects,’’ Mansoor said.
Food insecure nations, particularly in the arid Gulf region, are
investing in farmland across Africa. Critics have denounced such
deals as land grabs.
About half of Mauritius's cultivated land is covered in sugar
cane. Supermarket shelves are loaded with foodstuffs from
Madagascar, South Africa, France and Australia.
NAN/Yinka
