Bangladesh is considering contract farming in Africa. It has already received an offer from South Sudan, Africa’s youngest nation, and is said to be in backroom negotiations with few other countries.
During his recent visit to Bangladesh, South Sudan’s deputy minister for foreign and international cooperation Deng Dau Deng Malek, placed the contract farming proposal in a meeting with agriculture minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque.
Malek sought Bangladesh’s cooperation in agricultural production, processing and marketing in the central African country. Razzaque told journalists later that Bangladesh will send an expert team to identify specific areas of cooperation and finalise an action plan. The team will comprise various experts including agricultural researchers, scientists and workers.
Contract framing
The contract framing process involves Bangladesh taking over thousands of square kilometres of land, mostly fallow, in African countries, move its hardworking farm labour to these areas and cultivate them. This will address Africa’s chronic food shortage, bring huge areas of the continent under gainful agriculture, keep surplus Bangladesh farm labour gainfully engaged in welcoming countries and ease the population pressure in Bangladesh.
The move is a win-win for both sides not only more food production but also the ‘rub-off’ effect, by which the African tribes people, still pastoral or hunter-gatherer, will learn modern wet-rice cultivation from the east Bengali farmer.
Deng told Razzaque that South Sudan has more than six lakh square kilometres of land. “Most of its land is fallow, non-cultivated. There is a possibility of producing many crops by bringing this huge area under agricultural production.”
