Being the custodian of the Ethiopian state must be an undertaking that shows no gratitude in return. In many ways, it puts those at the helm of power in a position of “Damned if you do; damned if you do not.”

It seems that this is precisely where the current wardens of the state, the Revolutionary Democrats, find themselves when it comes to the issue of land. Indeed, this is an issue that has been rocking the core of Ethiopia’s politics for over two generations now. It remains an issue in the absence of a broader consensus among various interests.

Once again, the issue of land has dominated the sphere of public discourse following a series of stories on the arrival of investors with fat pockets from the Middle East and Asia. One such company is Karuturi Agro Products Plc, an Indian company with interests in Kenya, too.

This company has a couple of investments in Ethiopia, including a 52ht plot near the town of Holeta, where its subsidiary company grows cut-roses for export. The fact that there are several such companies exporting flowers has apparently generated little discussion and causes fewer concerns as companies with an interest in commercial farming.

What has become a subject of scepticism and intense controversy is the type of land companies, such as Karuturi, are acquiring to farm grains (wheat and corn) with plans to export to countries with higher food demands. Many describe this development employing phrases like “land grabbing,” “agricultural imperialism,” “colonialism of the new era,” or “food piracy.” International organisations from the World Bank to the United Nations have sounded alarms that companies from rich countries going to underdeveloped regions to acquire farmlands as part of their strategy to ensure national food security may harm the interests of the people in the poor countries.

Karuturi is one of these investors which symbolises such fears in Ethiopia.

It has, for instance, leased a 10,700ht plot for 30 years from the Oromia Regional State, where it has begun the plantation of corn on 4,000ht. This plot is part of a vast land, three times larger than what this company has acquired through a lease in a location 251km southwest of Addis Abeba, near Bako Town. There has been no farmer with a claim to this plot, though, except the farming community there using parts of it for grazing. It has been under the state’s control and left idle for generations.

There are now close to 100 green-coloured tractors deployed on the land in order to realise the owners’ desires to harvest close 50,000tn of maize in this fiscal year. The first harvest of 5,000tn ought to be ready by now, with company managers claiming that their intention is first to satisfy the local market.

However, the company’s spectacular undertaking in Ethiopia has yet to come. It wants to invest 250 million dollars to develop 300,000ht of land in Jiksaw, Itang and Lare weredas of the Gambella Regional State, through a lease agreement valid for 50 years, beginning from July 2008.

Indeed, Karuturi is only one pioneer in the growing presence of similar foreign-owned companies invading the landscapes of rural Ethiopia. There is also Saudi Star Agricultural Development, with a 10,000ht plot acquired in Gambella. More are to come, with companies from the United Arab Emirates, Korea and Japan placing applications for plots.

Many Ethiopians are not comfortable with this development; they see it as an exercise by policymakers that puts the country up for grabs at any price. Although some are not necessarily against the prospect of the country’s rural land being developed, the absence and lack of information on the details of the deals made with these companies – and the governments behind them - troubles their conscious.

It is a legitimate concern that warrants the federal government’s address.

Aside from public demands for the disclosure of the nature of these contracts and for the regulatory oversight the government ought to have over these companies, the argument that the country should not open its doors to foreign investments in agriculture holds little water. Neither would demonising these companies’ help for a country struggling to overcome poverty.

It is indeed ironic to see the Revolutionary Democrats being criticised now for opening up room for the emergence of private commercial farms. They have been under harsh criticism over the past decade and a half due to their economic policy framework of Agricultural Development Led Industrialisation (ADLI). Their political opponents and pundits alike used to argue that committing the nation’s resources and focusing its priorities on agricultural development, in a country where the agrarian society largely constitutes subsistence farming on small and fragmented plots, would be a recipe for disaster.

The discourse in the 1990s was heavily dominated by persistent calls from those outside of the government for a focus on industrialisation and an expansion of urbanised services, while promoting large-scale irrigation and encouraging the emergence of private commercial farms.

The Revolutionary Democrats have been adamant on pursuing their policy of ADLI. They insisted that a sector that employs over 80pc of the nation’s labour, comprises half of the nation’s exportable items, and constitutes over 40pc of the gross domestic product is too important to be neglected. Two years ago, they were proven to be on the right side of history when the World Bank criticised what it said was a substantial decline in the world in investments on agriculture over the last quarter of the 20th Century.

It had also urged countries across the world to increase spending on agriculture in order to face the related impending challenges.

With the size of the earth’s population swelling to seven billion, the demand to feed all these people became a depressing prospect. The world that swore “Never again!” following Ethiopia’s gruesome famine in the 1970s is today accustomed to the fact that there are one billion people across the world without food to eat. They go hungry.

The soaring prices of food in 2008, and the subsequent civil discontents in many countries, has forced many governments to redefine their priorities and question the supply of food that once was taken for granted.

Yet, there is the horrifying prospect of the widening gap between demand and supply of agricultural produce. For instance, the global annual production of corn, up until June 2009, was 775 million tonnes; it was short by 12 million tonnes, according to the International Grain Council.       

Clearly, what is driving these companies to places like Ethiopia is this kind of shortfall in food supplies.

And Ethiopia has a choice to make.

It could have a government that would give in to the wounded pride and xenophobic impulses of some people and thus deny access to companies such as Karuturi. That would leave the nation with the option of retaining millions of hectares of arable land untouched, for what has been clearly lacking here is capital and technology. It would, of course, be delightful news had there been an Ethiopian individual investor or institution with the ability to mobilise the over 200 million dollars Karuturi is now pledging.

Sealing the country off to foreign direct investment in agriculture may appeal to nationalistic sentiments. Sadly, this could be at the cost of depriving the country and its people the opportunity to grow and develop.

Companies such as Karuturi, provided that there is sufficient regulatory oversight by an efficient state free from corruption, could help as catalysts for the transformation of Ethiopia’s agricultural sector from its current dismal state. Most crucially, they have the capital, the technology and the acquired skills that would remain behind when they leave at the end of their lease terms.

During their active years, they would provide job opportunities to thousands and offer skills to many young people among them. There are now those Ethiopians who have been taught how to operate heavy duty agricultural machinery and trained as mechanics at the farm site of Karuturi near Bako.

These companies could be used as new forces to place the country on the map of global food sources, as opposed to its being viewed as a poster-child of drought and famine that has unfortunately characterised this country over the past 25 years.

They would help to energise the domestic private sector and pay tax from their operations here. What is exported would generate foreign currency for the country, as any cash crops do.

It is refreshing to think that these companies, with the resources they bring, would help this country contribute its share in the global effort to overcome the food supply crises. That would be possible when Ethiopia is ready to fully embrace the ideals of the free movement of goods, capital, and people, which has lifted half a billion people out of poverty and brought prosperity to the world since the 1970s.