Expanding agriculture in Angola
October 6th, 2008 at 1:46 pm | posted by Chris.ScottI wanted to pass along this interesting piece that ran in Saturday’s Financial Times.
You might have read that Angola is in the process of emerging from an extremely protracted civil war. In an attempt to secure peace and economic stability, Angola announced a plan to expand farming that could feed the country and attract $6 billion in agriculture investments over the next 5 years.
Excerpts below, full article here
With arable land of 35m hectares – an area the size of Germany – Angola used to feed its own people as well as satisfy world demand for coffee, sisal, bananas and sugar before the outbreak of a conflict that raged for nearly three decades.
Today it imports more than half its food and only 10 per cent of productive land is cultivated. Keen to diversify the economy away from the oil that has brought rollercoaster expansion since a 2002 peace accord and reduce dependence on foreign food, the government is in the early stages of discussions with leading agriculture investors from Brazil, Spain, Canada, the US, Argentina and its former colonial power Portugal, Joaquím Duarte Gomes, head of planning at the agriculture ministry, told the Financial Times.
The $6bn target by 2013 – compared with total non-oil foreign direct investment of $924m last year – is ambitious. Business people in Luanda complain of graft and labyrinthine bureaucracy. It takes 119 days to set up a company, according to the World Bank, more than double the regional average.
-Chris Scott
October 8th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
How did we get here? This a a question that seems to be so general and yet we all are asking it for specific reasons….the economy, the poverty and disease of many seems to be the answer it is the “bottom up theory” that might need true reviewing . The true term rescue’ has revealed it’s self through our Government leaders mouth’s…you are getting warmer! Solve poverty and homelessness in a global fashion-meaning reaching out as the world model…do the real stimulus and watch the world markets have hope and confidence! And yes ONE person at a time collectively is an awesome number.