On 10 June 2022, Tanzanian security forces used live ammunition and tear gas to stop a peaceful Maasai protest in Ololosokwan, Loliondo, Arusha. The demonstrators resisted displacement from their ancestral lands.
Over 40 were injured, many rendered homeless, and others fled. This marked the fourth forced eviction of the Maasai from their land since 2009.
In a report by Amnesty International in June 2022, several Maasai residents described watching their homes set ablaze while livestock scattered into the forest. One of them, identified as Loserian, said, “They told us we were being moved for conservation, but we knew it was for investors.”
UAE’s Food Security Ambitions and Strategic Expansion
Under its National Food Security Strategy 2051, the UAE has intensified foreign land acquisitions. The intention is to make the Emirates less dependent on imports and more resilient against global food supply shocks.
The speed of acquisitions increased after the 2007 and 2008 global food crises, and the hazardous disruptions by extreme climate events such as the La Niña climate phenomena and the Russia-Ukraine war.
These crises exposed vulnerabilities in food-importing nations like the UAE, highlighting the strategic urgency of foreign farmland investments. The UAE ranked 23rd in the Global Food Security Index in 2022 but aims to reach the first position by 2051, the target year for its National Food Security Strategy.
This strategy reflects both agricultural foresight and geopolitical positioning, as food security increasingly defines national security in the 21st century.
Scale of Investments and African Focus
According to the Land Matrix global observatory, in its 2024 update, the UAE has so far signed fifty-six farmland agreements globally, the first dating back over fifty years to Sudan.
Currently, fourteen new land acquisition transactions are ongoing, mainly in Africa. Examples include Dubai Investments’ and E20’s projects in Angola, producing 28,000 tonnes of rice and 5,500 tonnes of avocados on 9,300 hectares.
Emirati agribusiness firm Al Dahra is negotiating farmland in Egypt’s Toshka region for grain cultivation. Similar UAE-backed projects exist in Sudan’s Al-Gezira region and Ethiopia’s Afar state, where wheat is grown mainly for Gulf export markets rather than local consumption.
Promise of Prosperity or Strategic Control?
Proponents argue that Africa, with its vast stretches of underutilised arable land, benefits from foreign investments that can boost food security, create jobs, and strengthen infrastructure. Host governments view these ventures as opportunities for foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic revival.
However, critics counter that such deals often deepen inequality and external dependence. According to data published by fDi Markets in 2022 and 2023, the Emirates announced $97 billion in African investments – three times China’s total within the same period. Yet, the actual benefits to local farmers and communities remain uncertain.
These land acquisitions cover agriculture, forestry, and real estate in Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Morocco, often justified as efforts toward food security and carbon credit generation.
In its 2024 findings, the Oakland Institute reported that many carbon offset projects lack measurable reforestation outcomes, raising doubts about whether these initiatives genuinely promote sustainability or merely serve as instruments of strategic land
Environmental and Human Rights Fallout
These investments have raised serious concerns about human rights violations, environmental damage, and community displacement.
Many ask why Africa accounts for most of the UAE’s farmland acquisitions, while Europe and Asia see far less. Some observers worry that the continent is being used as a testing ground for UAE agricultural experiments, which brings up questions about Africa’s sovereignty.
In Kenya and Ethiopia, UAE-backed projects have introduced smart irrigation systems and hydroponic farms to boost export yields. While these technologies are innovative, local communities are rarely involved or consulted.
Activists in Kenya’s Tana River region warn that expanding sugarcane plantations threaten biodiversity. Meanwhile, in Ethiopia’s Gambella region, protesters report that irrigation canals have diverted water from community farms, affecting their livelihoods.
These community-level challenges reveal deeper structural issues about how African nations negotiate and manage such deals. The environmental and social fallout on the ground is often a reflection of weak bargaining frameworks at the national level, which paves the way for unequal partnerships.
Africa’s Bargaining Weakness
Although the UAE describes these agreements as collaborations for development and resilience, many communities still face displacement, lost culture, and environmental pressures.
Africa often lacks the negotiating power seen in regions such as Romania, Kazakhstan, and Serbia, where farmland deals include clear terms, fair pricing, and technology-sharing frameworks.
In Eastern Europe, the average land-lease price per hectare is nearly six times higher than in Sub-Saharan Africa, showing the imbalance.
For instance, UAE–Romania trade exceeded $1.2 billion in 2023, focusing on technology transfer, agriculture, and logistics rather than land leasing. Kazakhstan regulates UAE agricultural projects to guarantee local employment and environmental accountability; conditions rarely enforced in Africa.
In Serbia, Elite Agro LLC, a UAE-registered firm operating under state-supervised frameworks, manages over 12,000 hectares of arable land while safeguarding local interests.
This contrasts sharply with African deals, where agreements often prioritise exports over local food security, leaving nations dependent on foreign-controlled food systems.
African communities frequently receive minimal compensation and limited social benefits, while investors gain disproportionate control.
This lack of negotiation strength has broader implications beyond economics. It sets the stage for emerging geopolitical patterns, where financial dependence gradually evolves into strategic influence, a reality many analysts now describe as sub-imperial dynamics.
The Sub-Imperial Dynamics in Africa
Critics argue that the UAE’s growing presence in Africa resembles a modern form of economic recolonisation aimed at gaining geopolitical leverage.
Observers note that its engagements act as “sub-imperial extensions” of global trade diplomacy, mirroring colonial-era extraction patterns under a modern guise.
According to the UNCTAD Africa Investment report released in 2024, the UAE has invested heavily in ports, airports, and infrastructure, holding stakes in 18 African ports and 14 major agricultural export corridors.
These projects extend its reach into mining, logistics, oil, and agriculture, giving it influence over key national sectors.
Africa’s limited bargaining capacity stands out when compared with regions such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where UAE partnerships follow structured agreements involving technology transfer and clearer accountability mechanisms.
Such models provide partner countries greater leverage. However, many African nations still struggle to achieve this level of negotiation strength and benefit in their engagements with the UAE.
According to the UNCTAD World Investment Report released on May 24, 2024, the UAE’s cumulative investment footprint in Africa now exceeds $97 billion, covering sectors from infrastructure to energy and agriculture.
Unequal Deals and the Price of Dependency
The pattern of sub-imperial influence outlined above does not stop at political leverage; it extends deeply into Africa’s food systems and economic dependency. The ripple effect of these large-scale land deals becomes evident when examining how they reshape national priorities and local livelihoods.
With Kazakhstan, the UAE is seeking to invest in agricultural projects as part of its effort to secure food supplies, since the rich nation imports about 85 per cent of its food.
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the UAE’s president, said during a visit that the country was looking to diversify its sources of food imports.
Skyrocketing food prices, particularly for rice and wheat, have prompted oil-rich Gulf countries, which import most of their food, to consider developing agricultural projects abroad.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture of Kazakhstan in 2024, these projects operated under state-regulated frameworks that guarantee minimum local employment quotas and environmental accountability-conditions rarely enforced in African deals.
UAE–Serbia relations have strengthened since 2012, fostering economic cooperation and foreign investment.
Major UAE companies operate in aviation, agriculture, real estate, and energy. Elite Agro LLC (Abu Dhabi) owns over 12,000 hectares of arable land in Serbia, making it one of the country’s largest single foreign agricultural holders.
These nations have a bargaining advantage over African countries regarding land acquisition.
Here lies the policy dilemma for Africa: while others negotiate terms that safeguard local benefit, many African states continue to sign agreements that exchange long-term sovereignty for short-term financial relief. This imbalance underscores the price of dependency and the urgent need for a continental framework to ensure equity and accountability in future land transactions.
The African Predicament: Exploitation or Opportunity?
The contrast between Africa and other regions raises a deeper question, who truly benefits from these deals?
Many African countries see the land acquisition deals as exploitation, as the price offered are never fair. A critical issue in all these is food security since many of the UAE’s agricultural projects are geared towards export, potentially leading to shortages or higher prices for staple foods and increasing dependence on foreign controlled food systems.
Recent findings back these fears with data rather than sentiment. In 2023, the African Development Bank (AfDB) report warned that over-reliance on export-oriented agricultural partnerships reduces national food sovereignty by up to 35 per cent in participating nations.
Yet, the situation is not entirely one-sided. For African nations facing severe economic challenges, projects like UAE land acquisitions can provide critical lifelines.
For decades, Ethiopia, historically known for famine and food shortages, remains among the poorest despite billions in aid. However, the Ethiopian example also shows how opportunity can easily turn into dependency.
According to Land Matrix Africa reports of 2024, 3.6 million hectares of Ethiopian land have been leased to foreign investors, with 38 per cent attributed to Gulf entities led by UAE-based agribusinesses.
Governance and Local Resistance
Beyond foreign investors, local governance plays a decisive role in how these deals unfold.
There are obvious cases of transactions that seem exploitative. In Liberia, memoranda of understanding (MOUs) reviewed by Global Witness in 2023 show investors receiving 70 per cent of revenues from carbon credits, while the host nation receives 30 per cent.
No wonder Andrew Zeleman, secretary of the National Union of Liberia’s Community Forestry Development Committee, would ask, “Who owns the forest? There should not be a middleman taking the lion’s share.” Local communities have not remained silent in the face of such imbalance.
They often respond to these deals through resistance, adaptation, or forced compliance.
A 2024 field report by Amnesty International field report documented that over 12,000 Maasai people in Tanzania were forcibly evicted under “conservation” claims tied to the Ortello Business Corporation (OBC), a UAE-linked trophy hunting company.
This aligns with previous findings by Human Rights Watch in its 2023 investigation, which detailed illegal land seizures facilitated through state complicity.
Such examples expose the deeper issue of elite collaboration and poor accountability.
This brings us to the role being played by host governments, their elites, and local communities.
In one African country, a Middle East investor came with the idea of establishing an agro-allied business but ended up with a mining industry that destroyed the flora and fauna of a poor nation. As citizens questioned missing MOUs, elites looked away while investors enriched middlemen.
This pattern points to a broader governance crisis that enables exploitation. In 2024, Transparency International’s Africa Governance Index ranks over 65 per cent of African land deal negotiations as opaque or non-participatory.
Transparency and the Question of Who Benefits
If governance is the foundation of fairness, transparency is its test. Transparency is the missing link in many of these deals. According to a 2024 World Bank policy brief on African investment frameworks, 72 per cent of all foreign agricultural contracts signed between 2010 and 2022 were never publicly disclosed.
This secrecy allows corruption, manipulation, and underhanded deals to thrive. For many communities, these contracts translate to land loss, displacement, and poverty. When accountability is absent, promises lose their meaning.
When investors fail to meet obligations such as building schools, hospitals, or providing local employment as captured in the MOU, they often go unpunished.
A 2023 report by the African Union Commission on Rural Development revealed that less than 30 per cent of signed agricultural MOUs between African states and foreign entities achieved even 50 per cent of their stated social-development targets.Kenya’s experience highlights how opacity deepens dependency.okay
In Kenya, for instance, unclear 99-year leases documented by Kenya Land Alliance in 2024, sparked public outcry, showing opacity risks long-term dependency.
Civil society groups such as the Kenya Land Alliance documented that several land parcels were acquired under 99-year lease agreements without environmental assessment or parliamentary ratification.
Toward Equitable Agricultural Partnerships
If Africa is to shed the label of a “resource colony,” it must insist on equity, transparency, and local empowerment in every investment deal. The continent can learn from Serbia and Romania, where clear frameworks, fair negotiations, and technology partnerships ensure mutual benefit.
African nations should establish laws protecting communal land rights, enforcing environmental safeguards, and requiring investors to prioritize host-nation food security.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat’s 2024 policy update calls for 40 per cent of the foreign farms produce to remain for local consumption.
Civil societies, journalists, and community leaders must also demand open contracts, environmental audits, and fair compensation for displaced communities.
Data from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s 2024 Governance Index shows that nations with active civil oversight, like Botswana and Rwanda, record 35 per cent higher social benefits from foreign agricultural investments than those without civic participation.
From Land Deals to Land Justice
The UAE’s agricultural expansion in Africa presents both opportunity and risk. While it can deliver infrastructure, jobs, and modern agricultural practices, it also deepens economic dependency and revives old patterns of external control.
As global food insecurity intensifies toward 2050, Africa stands at a defining crossroads. The continent’s leaders must move beyond symbolic partnerships toward transparent, fair, and locally driven agricultural policies that protect community rights and national sovereignty.
For Africa, true food security will not come from foreign farmland deals but from equitable and accountable partnerships that prioritise its people and its future.
