Africa: ME’s farmland buys seen as ‘a win-win partnership’

The head of a 19-state African trading bloc has denied the Gulf’s policy of snapping up cheap farmland across the continent is tantamount to a ‘neo-colonialist’ land grab. Sindiso Ngwenya, secretary general of Comesa, which counts Kenya, Egypt, Sudan and Madagascar among its members, said multimillion-dollar land deals aimed at securing the Gulf’s food supply provide crucial capital to overhaul poverty-stricken rural areas and build infrastructure.