Gambella National Park

LandRush - The Farm

LandRush - The Farm
Frauke Huber, Uwe H. Martin

Gambela, a forlorn plot of land tucked away between the Ethiopian highlands and the vast expanse of South Sudan. Gambela—hot, humid, flat. Unchanged for centuries: Tribes leading their herds. Anuak, Nuer, Murle fighting for cattle, women, pastures. First with spears, now with kalashnikovs.

Gambela—suddenly a hotspot of international developments. In 2008 global food prices exploded, making many governments painfully aware of their reliance on food imports. Outsourcing food production is becoming a global trend. Farmland is today’s hottest investment, triggering a genuine land rush. 

Ramakrishna Karuturi, a rose producer from India, has secured 100,000 hectares of land in Gambela. If it is developed successfully, the Ethiopian government has promised him a further 200,000 hectares—a farm roughly the size of Luxembourg. Flat like a pancake, perfectly suited for industrial agriculture and the use of the enormous agricultural machinery that Karuturi has already imported.

The land is so fertile that a seed only needs to fall on the soil to start sprouting. A living land. “Paradise” is a recurring word in our conversations.

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Gambella National Park

Banthavehun Wassihun is the warden of the Gambela National Park. He highlights the effects of big investments on the National Park.

Gambella National Park
Artist/Author: Uwe H. Martin Frauke Huber

On a hundred-kilometer stretch of land, an almost untouched ecosystem is being reshaped. To make way for the investors, parts of the Gambela National Park, known as the site of Africa’s biggest animal migration outside the Serengeti, were unceremoniously moved. The marshes are drained. Instead of crocodiles, leopards, and white-eared kobs, this area will soon be covered in sugar cane, oil palms, rice, corn, and cotton.