Tanzania sugar project leaves bitter taste for farmers caught up in land disputes | Ariel Zirulnick

A stalled scheme to make Tanzania east Africa's premier sugar producer has polarised opinion about using large-scale agriculture to achieve food security

Per Carstedt, executive chairman of the Swedish company Agro EcoEnergy, has a vision for a shrubby tract of land on the north Tanzanian coast. Under his firm's plan, farmers who once depended on subsistence work will earn wages on a sugarcane plantation or from selling sugarcane they grow to a planned processing facility.

The factory will process sugar for export as well as for ethanol. The fields will be crisscrossed with irrigation canals and treated with a mix of organic and synthetic fertiliser. Within a few years, Tanzania will be the biggest sugar producer in the East African Community, transforming its agriculture sector.