A poacher was caught with freshly hunted bushmeat by the wardens of the Gambella National Park and later brought to jail. It is a typical story that plays out in many places. While local people are jailed for hunting in protected areas (often a traditional food source), governments are leasing land in the same areas to international investors. To make way for the investors, parts of the Gambella National Park, known as the site of Africa’s biggest animal migration outside the Serengeti, were unceremoniously moved. Every year about a million white-eared kobs along with Nile lechwe and the giant shoebill storks come to the 5,000-square-kilometer park that was created in 1974 and occupies occupies much of Gambella. Now the marshes are drained. Instead of crocodiles, leopards, and white-eared kobs, this area was designed to be covered in sugar cane, oil palms, rice, corn, and cotton. The massive investments and extensive surfaces affect life in the entire region. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambella region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #migration #antelope #slowviolence #documentaryphotography #photojournalism #environment #environmentaljustice
We joined the wardens of the Gambella National Park on mission to study park condition and look for poachers. On a hundred-kilometer stretch of land, an almost untouched ecosystem is being reshaped. To make way for the investors, parts of the Gambella National Park, known as the site of Africa’s biggest animal migration outside the Serengeti, were unceremoniously moved. Every year about a million white-eared kobs along with Nile lechwe and the giant shoebill storks come to the 5,000-square-kilometer park that was created in 1974 and occupies occupies much of Gambella. Now the marshes are drained. Instead of crocodiles, leopards, and white-eared kobs, this area was designed to be covered in sugar cane, oil palms, rice, corn, and cotton. The massive investments and extensive surfaces affect life in the entire region. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambela region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #migration #antelope #slowviolence #documentaryphotography #photojournalism #environment
On a hundred-kilometer stretch of land, an almost untouched ecosystem is being reshaped. To make way for the investors, parts of the Gambella National Park, known as the site of Africa’s biggest animal migration outside the Serengeti, were unceremoniously moved. Every year about a million white-eared kobs along with Nile lechwe and the giant shoebill storks come to the 5,000-square-kilometer park that was created in 1974 and occupies occupies much of Gambella. Now the marshes are drained. Instead of crocodiles, leopards, and white-eared kobs, this area was designed to be covered in sugar cane, oil palms, rice, corn, and cotton. The massive investments and extensive surfaces affect life in the entire region. Critics have suggested Gambella -this forlorn region in Ethiopias western lowlands bordering South Sudan – should be renamed Karuturistan. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambela region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #migration #antelope #slowviolence #documentaryphotography #photojournalism #environment
We visited the Nuer village of Puldaing during our research of international land investments in the Gambella region of western Ethiopia. In the dry season, the whole village moved to the shore of the Baro river, a contributory to the Nile, where they supplemented the milk and meat of their cattle by fishing and the cultivation of millet. During the rainy season most of the people lived in the permanent village built on higher ground close to the road that connects the town of Gambella with the border of South Sudan. When we visited in 2011 and 2012, the people of Puldaing had heard of the Indian investor Karuturi LTD but where not too concerned about their appearance. They hadn’t realized yet that the land they where living on was officially rented to the investor by the Ethiopian government. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambela region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #pastoralism #documentaryphotography #photojournalism #environment #duststorm #indiginous
When we visited the Nuer village of Puldaing during our research of international land investments in the Gambella region of western Ethiopia, the villages „leopard-skin chief“ invited us to stay for a feast that involved a ritual dance. The Nuer are pastoralist people with a close connection to their cattle, that are central to their culture, institutions, economy, politics and lineage. All of the raw material the Nuer traditionally use like drums, rugs, clothing, spears and shields are made from these cattle, but they are even more important in their role as bride wealth. They are given by a husband's family to his wife's lineage. It is this exchange of cattle which ensures that the children will be considered to belong to the husband's lineage and to his line of descent. The classical Nuer institution of ghost marriage, in which a man can father children after his death, is based on this ability of cattle exchanges to define relations of kinship and descent. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambela region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #pastoralism #documentaryphotography #photojournalism #cattle
We visited the Nuer village of Puldaing during our research of international land investments in the Gambella region of western Ethiopia. During the rainy season most of the people lived in the permanent village built on higher ground close to the road that connects the town of Gambella with the border of South Sudan. In the dry season though, the whole village moved to the shore of the Baro river, a contributory to the Nile, where they supplemented the milk and meat of their cattle by fishing and the cultivation of millet. When we visited in 2011 and 2012, the people of Puldaing had heard of the Indian investor Karuturi LTD but where not too concerned about their appearance. They hadn’t realized yet that the land they where living on was officially rented to the investor by the Ethiopian government. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambela region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #pastoralism #slowviolence #documentaryphotography #photojournalism #environment
On a hundred-kilometer stretch of land, an almost untouched ecosystem is being reshaped. To make way for the investors, parts of the Gambella National Park, known as the site of Africa’s biggest animal migration outside the Serengeti, were unceremoniously moved. Every year about a million white-eared kobs along with Nile lechwe and the giant shoebill storks come to the 5,000-square-kilometer park that was created in 1974 and occupies occupies much of Gambella. Now the marshes are drained. Instead of crocodiles, leopards, and white-eared kobs, this area was designed to be covered in sugar cane, oil palms, rice, corn, and cotton. The massive investments and extensive surfaces affect life in the entire region. Critics have suggested Gambella -this forlorn region in Ethiopias western lowlands bordering South Sudan – should be renamed Karuturistan. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambela region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #migration #antelope #slowviolence #documentaryphotography #photojournalism #environment #ecology
An Anuak woman stands on a rice field banging on a metal screen all day long to keep the birds away. A human scarecrow, earning about 80 cents a day. The investors had promised great new jobs and development opportunity for the local population, but the Anuaks only got the worst paying jobs, while the better paying ones were given to people from the highlands and management was firmly in the hand of Indians. Farmland investors such as Karuturi LTD had been giving hundreds of thousands of hectares of ancestral land in Gambella, a forlorn region in Ethiopias western lowlands bordering South Sudan. By converting uncultivated bush into productive farms, officials believed food security and export revenues would improve in a country dominated by subsistence agriculture. Unlike other Nilotic peoples in the Upper Nile, whose economies are based on raising cattle, the Anuak are herdsmen and farmers. Their pastoral traditions depend on large tracts of land that are held collectively, including forests and pastures that support livestock, hunting and gathering. While the land is used according to local customs, it is legally owned as the property of the state. As some of the land isn't used year round or lays fallow to regenerate for a few years the administration had deemed the land unused, underused or empty and offered it to international investors in search of farm land. Karuturi, like many of the investors in the region, didn't care for local traditions and customary usage of land but started clearcutting the land they leased from the government, destroying land that was traditionally used for hunting, the production of honey and harvesting gras. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambela region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #pastoralism #slowviolence #documentaryphotography #photojournalism #environment
Ram Karuturi wants to build “the most modern farm in the world” for 50,000 workers. He also sees schools, hospitals, cinemas, entire cities sprouting out of the ground. Within three years, he said in 2012, the farm could feed an entire nation. The lifestyle he describes is an urban one. While rural populations and their spokespersons—human rights activists, humanitarian aid organizations, globalization critics—focus on food safety and self-sufficiency, the city is dependent on the production of surplus food in the countryside. More than half of the world’s population lives in cities today—a growing trend as more and more small farmers are chased from their land by industrial farms and move to urban centres in search of jobs. In the final consequence, the urban model of life is reliant on excess production wherever there is sufficient water and good soil. And that includes remote places such as Gambella, Sudan, Congo, Tanzania. Africa is seized by land-rush fever. In recent years, farmland the size of France has changed owners—often grossly undervalued, through secret agreements, and without any consideration for the interests of the local population. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambella region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #USA #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #anthropocene #slowviolence
We met an Indian farmer who was standing knee-deep in mud. He moved to Gambella to plant rice on Karuturi’s trial fields. He called his new field “paradise” and had never before plough such fertile soil. He toiled every day and didn’t understand why the locals didn’t think about tomorrow—why they didn’t make provisions although they were regularly starving. At home he owned four hectares of land. All his life he had been grinding away from sunrise to sunset to wrest a bit of rice, lentils, chili peppers, or eggplants from the barren land, saving up and building two houses, even sending his two children to college, as he proudly recounted, and now calling a motorbike his own. He was sixty years old. “People live in paradise here,” he said. “And yet they complain instead of working. They lie under a tree all day, drinking and smoking the pipe; they have three or four wives and twenty children.” Not all the Indian workers we met on Karuturi’s farm were so hands-on though. Most had been hired in higher management positions. And while the workers from the Ethiopian highland were operating machines, only the most basic and worst paying jobs were given to the local population of Gambella. But even for the Indians who lived in relatively comfortable tents and site trailers, the stint in Gambella was taking its toll: Many were suffering from malaria and by our second visit one had died from the illness. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambella region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #USA #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #anthropocene #slowviolence
Besides the Indian investor Karuturi LTD, billionaire Al Ahmoudi’s company, Saudi Star, is the second largest investor into farmland in Gambella. Saudi Star is constructing a 30-kilometer canal from an old unused state reservoir to irrigate tens of thousands of hectares of rice paddy. While Karuturi cleared thousands of hectares of land and tried to develop many farms dedicated to crops such as sugarcane, cotton, maize, sunflowers, oil palms, and rice simultaneously, Al Ahmoudi chose a more gradual growth. This proved to be the more viable option, when Karuturi, not used to the hydrology of the region and too arrogant to listen to the indigenous warnings was flooded by the Baro river in 2011 and 2012. The stock price of Karuturi LTD tanked sharply and never recovered, while Saudi Star is still operational. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambella region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #USA #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #anthropocene #slowviolence #flood #hydrology #dam
Armed guards protect a storage in the middle of the developing corn farm of Indian investor Karuturi LTD in the western Ethiopian region of Gambela. The worlds largest rose grower leased 100,000 hectares to grow food and energy crops in the remote region Gambela, an out of the way frontier region between the Ethiopian highlands and the vast expanse of South Sudan. If Karuturi was able to develop the initial 100,000 hectares, he had been promised a further 200,000 hectares by the Ethiopian government. 300,000 hectare, 740,000 acres, 3,000 square kilometers–a farm roughly the size of Luxembourg. On a hundred-kilometer stretch of land, an almost untouched ecosystem is being reshaped. To make way for the investors, parts of the Gambella 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 was designed to be covered in sugar cane, oil palms, rice, corn, and cotton. The massive investments and extensive surfaces affect life in the entire region. Critics have already suggested Gambella should be renamed Karuturistan. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambella region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #USA #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #anthropocene #slowviolence
The Baro River is the lifeline of the Gambella region of Ethiopia. Settlements of the region’s indigenous Anuak and Nuer people lay along its shores that are mainly used during the dry season, when the river runs low. During the rainy season though, the Baro becomes an un-calculable force and most people move away to settlements further inland. While the river has a very low flow during the dry season, during the rainy season, between June and October, it alone contributes about 10% of the Nile's water at Aswan, Egypt. When the Indian land investor, Karuturi LTD, started lining the river with pumps to irrigate their crops and berms to protect it’s fields from floods, the company changed the hydrology of the region. As a result, the indigenous population claims to have suffered from water shortages and floods. But the river had it’s own agenda. The Indian company, not used to the hydrology of the region and too arrogant to listen to the indigenous warnings was shocked, when the flooding of the Baro river destroyed 50,000 tonnes of maize in 2011 and again flooded the fields in 2012. The stock price of Karuturi LTD tanked sharply and never recovered. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambela region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #flood #hydrology #dam #anthropocene #slowviolence
Local Anuak women from the village of Ilia were hired by Indian land investor Karuturi LTD to work in the companies oil palm nursery. When the investor first started building his camp next to the village of Ilia, they promised good paying jobs, education for the children, a well and a generator, and also to help the indigenous population to plow their land. When we visited in 2011 nearly none of the promises had been realized. As the people of the region are mostly used to millennial farming techniques and lack mechanical knowledge the modern farm equipment of the investor requires, the people of Ilia were given only the most basic and worst paying jobs. The women were complaining about the meager pay of 80 US cents per day, while the Indians complained about the laziness of the local workers. They claimed that for every worker from the Ethiopian highland or an Indian farmer you had to hire four or five Anuaks to do the work. With these vastly different expectations conflicts between the new neighbors soon emerged. Karuturi, like many of the investors in the region, didn't care for local traditions and customary usage of land but started clearcutting the land, destroying land that was traditionally used for grazing, hunting, the production of honey and gras. While a lot of their traditional livelihood was destroyed not even the well paying jobs that had been promised emerged. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambela region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #USA #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #deforestation #anthropocene #slowviolence #socialdocumentary
To realize their ambitious plans to build one of Africa’s largest farms early on the Indian Karuturi LTD established it’s own brick factory to produce building material. When we interviewed the companies CEO, Ram Karuturi in 2011, he envisioned to build “the most modern farm in the world” for 50,000 workers. Karuturi also saw schools, hospitals, cinemas, entire cities sprouting out of the ground. He believed that his company would positively impact the region for generations to come, and promised to bring development, infrastructure, job opportunities and food security not only to the out of the way province of Gambella, but also to the country and the whole Horn of Africa region. With nearly religious vigor they went to work, clearing thousands of acres of land. They brought the most modern GPS guided harvesting machines to this „underdeveloped“ frontier region, long before the first field was even plowed, before the first seed was planted, before any crop had grown. This over optimistic approach saw the land as nothing more than a plan-able canvas for the investor’s wild dreams. When nature proved equipped with an agenda of its own it brought the company – at the time the world’s largest grower of cut roses – to its knees: In 2011, a flash flood from the Baro and Alwero rivers destroyed Karuturi’s first potential harvest of 60,000 metric tons of corn from about 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of land. It also flooded test fields of cotton and nearly inundated the sugar cane nursery. Karuturi learned the hard way that eighty percent of their concession was on a flood plain with a challenging hydrology and little available data of past flooding and rainfall. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambela region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #USA #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #deforestation #anthropocene #slowviolence #foodsecurity
Workers from the local Anuak tribe plant sugarcane on a newly prepared field on the Karuturi farm in the western Ethiopian region of Gambela. As a first step in the development of his mega farm Indian investor Karuturi LTD planed to establish a sugar cane plantation of 15,000 hectares, including a refinery. The companies CEO Ram Karuturi envisioned refining sugar in a plant on the farm and selling it within Ethiopia as well as South Sudan, just a 100 Kilometer to the west. There is a large demand for refined sugar in both countries, each importing large quantities through the harbor of Djibouti. But the ambitious plans where soon derailed: In 2011, a flash flood from the Baro and Alwero rivers destroyed Karuturi’s first potential harvest of 60,000 metric tons of corn from about 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of land. It also flooded test fields of cotton and nearly inundated the sugar cane nursery. The company said in a statement the loss was estimated at $15 million. This event set back the ambitious plans of the Indian company to establish one of Africa’s largest farms. Karuturi had leased 100,000 hectares of farmland along the Baro River, with the prospect of getting another 200,000 hectares if the first patch of land could be developed. The company grabbed the opportunity of getting the farm lease for an insanely low amount of money after studying maps and data provided by the Ethiopian government, and without even visiting the land before signing the contract. They soon figured out that eighty percent of their concession was on a flood plain with a challenging hydrology and little available data of past flooding and rainfall. ––– „The Farm“ investigates how international land investments in Ethiopia change the social and environmental fabric of the Gambela region. It is part of our @landrushproject that documents global agriculture since 2007. ––– #landrushproject #waterseedland #thefarm #bombayfc #USA #environmentalphotography #environmentalphotojournalism #slowjournalism #documentingourworld #landgrabbing #everydayafrica #plantationagriculture #flood #deforestation #anthropocene #slowviolence #hydrology #sugarcane
