20110521
Reuters
DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladeshi firms have joined Chinese and other companies looking to lease farmland in Africa as part of efforts to feed a growing population and offset creeping urbanisation at home.

Over the next two years Bangladeshi firms plan to lease a total of 600,000 hectares of unused arable land in African countries including Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Mozambique and Liberia, said Wahidur Rahman, a senior foreign ministry official, on Thursday.

Bhati Bangla Agritech was set to sign a deal to hire 30,000 hectares of farmland in Tanzania on Thursday, while Nitol Group

has inked an agreement to lease 10,000 hectares of land in Uganda, he said.

The move would help create jobs for Bangladeshi farmers as well.

The government, battling food price inflation of nearly 14 percent, is looking at all possible options to ensure security of food supplies for its more than 150 million people.

The disaster-prone South Asian country, once self-sufficient in rice production, has recently become a big importer, which analysts blamed on shrinking farmland due to rapid industrialisation and urbanisation.

The government is importing up to 2.5 million tonnes of food grain this fiscal year through June, five times as much as in the previous year, putting additional pressure on the budget.