‘I bought their dream’: How a US company’s huge land deal in Senegal went bust

A donkey and cart drive past the African Agriculture's headquarters in Niéti Yone, northern Senegal, Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 02 April 2025
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‘I bought their dream’: How a US company’s huge land deal in Senegal went bust

  • The failed project has undermined community trust, said herder Adama Sow, 74: “Before, we lived in peace, but now there’s conflict for those of us who supported them”

DAKAR, Senegal: Rusting pipes in a barren field and unpaid workers are what remain after a US company promised to turn a huge piece of land in Senegal — about twice the size of Paris — into an agricultural project and create thousands of jobs.
In interviews with company officials and residents, The Associated Press explored one of the growing number of foreign investment projects targeting Africa, home to about 60 percent of the world’s remaining uncultivated arable land. Like this one, many fail, often far from public notice.
Internal company documents seen by the AP show how the plans, endorsed by the Senegalese government, for exporting animal feed to wealthy Gulf nations fell apart.




Herders and farmers from left, Adama Sow, Oumar Ba and Daka Sow walk outside Niéti Yone, northern Senegal, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP)

At first glance, the landscape of stark acacia trees on the edge of the Sahara Desert doesn’t hold much agricultural promise. But in an age of climate change, foreign investors are looking at this and other African landscapes.
The continent has seen a third of the world’s large-scale land acquisitions between 2000 and 2020, mostly for agriculture, according to researchers from the International Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands.
But 23 percent of those deals have failed, after sometimes ambitious plans to feed the world.




Union leader Doudou Ndiaye Mboup speaks to reporters in Niéti Yone, northern Senegal, Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)

Why target land on the edge of the Sahara Desert?
In 2021, the Senegalese village of Niéti Yone welcomed investors Frank Timis and Gora Seck from a US-registered company, African Agriculture. Over cups of sweet green tea, the visitors promised to employ hundreds of locals and, one day, thousands.
Timis, originally from Romania, was the majority stakeholder. His companies have mined for gold, minerals and fossil fuels across West Africa.




Rusting pipes stand in a barren field outside Niéti Yone, northern Senegal, Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)

Seck, a Senegalese mining investor, chaired an Italian company whose biofuel plans for the land parcel had failed. It sold the 50-year lease for 20,000 hectares to Timis for $7.9 million. Seck came on as president of African Agriculture’s Senegalese subsidiary and holds 4.8 percent of its shares.
Now the company wanted the community’s approval.
The land was next to Senegal’s largest freshwater lake, for which the company obtained water rights.
The proposal divided the community of subsistence farmers. Herders who had raised livestock on the land for generations opposed it. Others, like Doudou Ndiaye Mboup, thought it could help ease Senegal’s unemployment crisis.
“I bought their dream. I saw thousands of young Africans with jobs and prosperity,” said Mboup, who was later employed as an electrician and now leads a union of employees.
Despite the formation of an opposition group called the Ndiael Collective, African Agriculture moved ahead, hiring about 70 of the community’s 10,000 residents.
Stock exchange vision: One year later, almost worth nothing
After planting a 300-hectare (740-acre) pilot plot of alfalfa, the company announced in November 2022 it would go public to raise funds.
African Agriculture valued the company at $450 million. The Oakland Institute, an environmental think tank in the US, questioned that amount and called the deal bad for food security as well as greenhouse gas emissions.
The company went public in December 2023, with shares trading at $8 on the NASDAQ exchange. It raised $22.6 million during the offering but had to pay $19 million to the listed but inactive company it had merged with.
That payment signaled trouble to investors. It showed that the other company, 0X Capital Venture Acquisition Corp. II, didn’t want to hold its 98 percent of stock. And it highlighted the way African Agriculture had used the merger to bypass the vetting process needed for listing.
One year later, shares in African Agriculture were worth almost nothing.
Now, security guards patrol the land’s barbed-wire perimeter, blocking herders and farmers from using it. The company has been delisted.
Big ambitions leave big impacts for the local community
Mboup said he and others haven’t been paid for six months. The workers took the company to employment court in Senegal to claim about $180,000 in unpaid wages. In February, they burned tires outside the company’s office. Mboup later said an agreement was reached for back wages to be paid in June.
“I took out loans to build a house and now I can’t pay it back,” said Mboup, who had been making $200 a month, just above average for Senegal. “I’ve sold my motorbike and sheep to feed my children and send them to school, but many are not so lucky.”
Timis didn’t respond to questions. Seck told the AP he was no longer affiliated with African Agriculture. Current CEO Mike Rhodes said he had been advised to not comment.
Herders and farmers are furious and have urged Senegal’s government to let them use the land. But that rarely happens. In a study of 63 such foreign deals, the International Institute of Social Studies found only 11 percent of land was returned to the community. In most cases, the land is offered to other investors.
“We want to work with the government to rectify this situation. If not, we will fight,” warned Bayal Sow, the area’s deputy mayor.
The Senegalese minister of agriculture, food sovereignty and herding, Mabouba Diagne, did not respond to questions. The African Agriculture deal occurred under the previous administration.
The failed project has undermined community trust, said herder Adama Sow, 74: “Before, we lived in peace, but now there’s conflict for those of us who supported them.”
Former CEO announces acquisition in Cameroon and Congo
Meanwhile, African Agriculture’s former CEO has moved on to a bigger land deal elsewhere on the continent — with experts raising questions again.
In August, South African Alan Kessler announced his new company, African Food Security, partnering with a Cameroonian, Baba Danpullo. It has announced a project roughly 30 times the size of the one in Senegal, with 635,000 hectares in Congo and Cameroon.
The new company seeks $875 million in investment. The company’s investor prospectus, obtained by the AP, says it plans to register in Abu Dhabi.
In an interview with the AP in January, Kessler blamed the failure of the Senegal project on the way African Agriculture’s public offering was structured. He said there were no plans for a public offering this time.
He claimed his new company’s project would double corn production in these countries, and described African Food Security as the “most incredibly important development company on the planet.” He said they have started to grow corn on 200 hectares in Cameroon.
Experts who looked over the prospectus raised concerns about its claims, including an unusually high projection for corn yields. Kessler rejected those concerns.
“When he was CEO of African Agriculture, Kessler also made lofty claims about food production, job creation, exports and investment returns that did not pan out,” said Renée Vellvé, co-founder of GRAIN, a Spain-based nonprofit for land rights.
Hype without proof was a key strategy for African Agriculture, said its former chief operating officer, Javier Orellana, who said he is owed 165,000 euros ($178,000) in unpaid salary after leaving the company in 2023.
He told the AP he had been suspicious of the company’s $450 million valuation.
“I know the agriculture industry well and ($450 million) didn’t add up,” Orellana said, adding he stayed on because the company gave him what he called a very attractive offer.
In the end, a share in African Agriculture is now worth less than a penny.
“We are looking forward to going back to Senegal,” Kessler said. “We were appreciated there. We’ve been welcomed back there.”


Macron to visit Meloni after rivalry creates tension on Ukraine, trade

Updated 57 min 13 sec ago
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Macron to visit Meloni after rivalry creates tension on Ukraine, trade

  • Macron is a fervent pro-European who has had a long rapport with Donald Trump
  • Meloni is a nationalist with a strong transatlantic tilt who seems more ideologically aligned with the US president

PARIS/ROME: French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Tuesday, seeking to improve relations amid tensions between the two European leaders over Ukraine, trade and relations with the United States.

Macron is a fervent pro-European who has had a long rapport with Donald Trump, while Meloni is a nationalist with a strong transatlantic tilt who seems more ideologically aligned with the US president. They have advocated different — even competing — approaches to the new Trump era.

Meloni, whose country has a large trade surplus with the US, has sought to keep Europe aligned with the US, using the slogan “Make the West great again” in a meeting with Trump in Washington in April. Macron has pushed for the EU to take a more independent approach.

On the Russian war in Ukraine, Meloni has been skeptical about Macron’s “coalition of the willing” and a Franco-British plan put forward earlier this year to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement. Sending troops would be deeply unpopular in Italy.

Hostility flared publicly in recent weeks, with officials close to Macron and Meloni privately or openly criticizing their respective initiatives over Ukraine or trade.

Meloni was criticized in Italy for not traveling to Kyiv with Macron and the German, British and Polish leaders on May 10 and then for missing a call with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a summit in Albania a few days later.

After Meloni explained her absence by saying the meetings were about sending troops to Ukraine, her government was furious that Macron said publicly that the meetings were about a ceasefire and seemed to equate her justification with “Russian disinformation.”

French and Italian officials said Macron had taken the initiative to hold Tuesday’s meeting and sought to play down talk of a rift, saying the meeting and a working dinner would be an opportunity for Macron to show “respect” and “friendship.”

“The president is available to all of our European partners, whatever the political persuasion may be,” an Elysee official told reporters.

The Elysee said the two would discuss security guarantees for Ukraine, the Mercosur trade deal and US tariffs, as well as industrial cooperation between the two countries, including Franco-Italian carmaker Stellantis, which appointed a new Italian chief executive last month.

Italian officials said the meeting was meant to “lay the foundations for a further strengthening of relations” and added that talks would also address the situation in the Middle East and Libya.

Both Italy and France are worried Russia might boost its presence in eastern Libya, to keep a foothold in the Mediterranean after Moscow’s ally President Bashar Assad was ousted in Syria in December.

“This Macron-Meloni meeting isn’t about rekindling Franco-Italian friendship. It’s about necessity, not nostalgia,” said Francesco Galietti of Rome-based consultancy Policy Sonar, saying the two capitals should find common ground on Libya “fast.”


French prosecutors treating Tunisian’s murder as suspected terrorism

Updated 03 June 2025
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French prosecutors treating Tunisian’s murder as suspected terrorism

  • Hichem Miraoui was shot 5 times by his white neighbor last week, in what police believe was a racist killing
  • It follows mounting concerns over hate crimes against Muslims in the country

LONDON: Prosecutors in France investigating the murder of a Tunisian man are treating the case as a suspected racist attack, The Times reported on Tuesday.

Hichem Miraoui, a 46-year-old hairdresser who had lived in France for 14 years, was shot five times on Saturday by his white neighbor, a 53-year-old named as Christophe B.

The involvement of counterterrorism prosecutors instead of criminal prosecutors in the alleged far-right killing is a first in France.

It follows mounting concerns over hate crimes against Muslims in the country after Malian man Aboubakar Cisse, 22, was stabbed to death outside a mosque in April.

In last week’s killing in the southern town of Puget-sur-Argens, a 25-year-old Turkish man was also shot but survived. The killer fled the scene by car but his partner alerted police, who arrested him.

Christophe B, a sports shooting enthusiast who carried gun permits, had earlier posted videos on social media declaring that he planned to kill foreigners.

He urged his compatriots to do the same, and in one video praised the late founder of France’s National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau described the killing of Miraoui as a “racist act.” However, the minister was previously criticized for what anti-racism groups described as an inadequate response to Cisse’s murder.

Counterterrorism authorities were also questioned for failing to treat the Malian national’s killing as terrorism, with the investigation into the case being carried out by criminal prosecutors.

Retailleau on Tuesday visited the Tunisian Embassy in Paris to express solidarity with the community.

The Tunisian diaspora in France numbers more than 1 million people. More than 6 million Muslims reside in the country, about 10 percent of the population.

“Racism in France and elsewhere is a poison, and we see clearly that it is a poison which kills. Every racist act is an anti-French act,” Retailleau said.

Official government data shows that racist, xenophobic and anti-religious crimes rose by 11 percent in the country last year.

However, such crimes in France are also “vastly underreported” because “victims often don’t trust the police or the authorities,” said Jean-Marie Burguburu, chairman of the National Consultative Human Rights Commission.


Police probe missing Briton case in Malaysia

Updated 03 June 2025
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Police probe missing Briton case in Malaysia

  • Johnson-Doyle was last seen on May 27 in the bustling Bangsar district
  • Police have asked for the public “not to speculate” about Johnson-Doyle’s disappearance

KUALA LUMPUR: The disappearance of a British man last week in Malaysia’s capital is being investigated from “all angles,” police said Tuesday.

A missing person’s report was filed, identifying the man as 25-year-old Jordan Johnson-Doyle, Kuala Lumpur police said.

Johnson-Doyle was last seen on May 27 in the bustling Bangsar district, known for its nightlife, trendy bars and cafes, according to local media reports.

“A detailed investigation, from all angles, is underway,” Brickfields district police chief Ku Mashariman Ku Mahmood told AFP.

“Those with any information are urged to contact their nearest police station,” Ku Mashariman added in a statement.

Johnson-Doyle’s mother Leanne Burnett, 44, told the Free Malaysia Today news website that her husband had traveled to Kuala Lumpur, adding “we are distraught and pray that he’s well somewhere.”

She said his family was “seeking the help of anyone who saw him at his last-known location to come forward and inform the police.”

Burnett said she was traveling to Malaysia with another son to help with the search.

Police have asked for the public “not to speculate” about Johnson-Doyle’s disappearance.

The British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur confirmed Tuesday that it would assist Johnson-Doyle’s family without naming them.

“We are supporting the family of a British man reported missing in Malaysia,” it said in a statement.

Local reports said Johnson-Doyle, a software engineer, was on a solo backpacking tour around Southeast Asia when he disappeared.


Modi’s soaring Indian aviation ambitions face many headwinds

Updated 03 June 2025
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Modi’s soaring Indian aviation ambitions face many headwinds

  • India’s rapid pace of aviation growth risks losing steam if plane shortages, infrastructure challenges and taxation issues are not addressed
  • Hostilities with neighbor Pakistan also causing Indian airlines to take large, expensive detours around Pakistani airspace, requiring more fuel

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s high-profile attendance at a global airlines conference this week underscores how much India is banking on a boom in aviation to support wider development goals, but headwinds to its ambitions are gathering force.

Undeterred by the uncertainty gripping the aviation sector globally due to trade tensions and shaky consumer confidence, India’s biggest airlines are plowing ahead with orders for new planes, following record deals two years ago.

However, the rapid pace of growth risks losing steam if plane shortages, infrastructure challenges and taxation issues are not addressed, industry officials warned at the International Air Transport Association’s annual meeting.

Hostilities with neighbor Pakistan are also causing Indian airlines to take large, expensive detours around Pakistani airspace, requiring more fuel and passenger care.

Carriers have asked the Indian government to waive some fees and provide tax exemptions, people familiar with the matter have told Reuters, but it is not clear if it will provide any help, despite its high-flying rhetoric.

New Delhi says it wants India to be a job-creating global aviation hub along the lines of Dubai, which currently handles much of India’s international traffic.

“In the coming years, the aviation sector is expected to be at the center of massive transformation and innovation, and India is ready to embrace these possibilities,” Modi told global aviation leaders on Monday.

But the transformation will require billions of dollars of investment in airports and industry supply chains, and a revamp of regulations, industry officials said.

The numbers look promising.

IATA forecasts passenger traffic in India will triple over the next 20 years and the country has set a target of increasing the number of airports to as many as 400 by 2047, up from 157 in 2024.

“We are fast emerging as a strategic connector country ... India is a natural connector of the skies and aviation as well,” India’s Civil Aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu told global airline CEOs in New Delhi.

Already the world’s third-largest aviation market by seats after the US and China, there is significant potential for India to grow.

The world’s most populous nation, India accounts for around 17.8 percent of people but only 4.2 percent of global air passengers, according to IATA.

A record 174 million Indian domestic and international passengers flew in 2024, compared to 730 million in China, IATA data shows.

“The outlook is potentially a very positive one for both the Indian economy and air transport industry. However, such outcomes are not guaranteed,” IATA said in a report on the Indian market.

Industry executives and analysts said more work lies ahead in scaling aviation-related infrastructure, updating rules, lowering taxes and making life easier for airlines.

“Even the regulators will agree that they need to update their regulation, because there is a reason why India is not punching above its weight. In fact, it is punching very much below its weight,” Association of Asia Pacific Airlines Director General Subhas Menon said.

Dubai-based Emirates, for example, says capacity restrictions on foreign airlines need to be relaxed for the industry to reach its full growth potential.

“For every seat we offer, particularly in the peaks, we’ve got three to 10 people trying to get it,” Emirates President Tim Clark told reporters.

Among other problems, India lacks enough domestic maintenance, repair and overhaul facilities to care for its fleet, making it overly dependent on foreign shops at a time of stiff competition for repair slots, particularly for engines.

Global airlines have aircraft sitting on the ground because there aren’t enough facilities available for servicing them, IATA Director General Willie Walsh said.

“I think airframe maintenance is a huge opportunity for India because you require labor and you require skills. And that’s something that I know India is investing in,” Walsh said, in response to a Reuters question at a press conference.

Airline growth globally is being tempered by extended delays to deliveries of new, more fuel-efficient planes due to supply chain issues.

India’s largest airline IndiGo has been leasing aircraft to allow it to expand internationally while it waits for new planes. This week it partnered with Air France-KLM , Virgin Atlantic and Delta to extend the reach of IndiGo tickets using those airlines’ networks.


Moscow poses no threat to Britain, says Russia’s UK embassy

Updated 03 June 2025
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Moscow poses no threat to Britain, says Russia’s UK embassy

  • Russia’s embassy issued a statement on Tuesday criticizing what it described as “a fresh salvo of anti-Russian rhetoric“
  • “Russia poses no threat to the United Kingdom and its people“

LONDON: Russia’s embassy in London said on Tuesday that Moscow had no intention of attacking Britain, rejecting accusations by the British government of growing aggression and daily cyberattacks.

Britain said on Monday it would radically change its approach to defense to address new threats, including from Russia, after endorsing the findings of an independently-produced Strategic Defense Review.

After unveiling the defense overhaul on Monday, British Defense Secretary John Healey said Europe was facing war, growing Russian aggression, new nuclear risks and daily cyberattacks.

Russia’s embassy issued a statement on Tuesday criticizing what it described as “a fresh salvo of anti-Russian rhetoric.”


“Russia poses no threat to the United Kingdom and its people,” the statement said. “We harbor no aggressive intentions and have no plans to attack Britain. We are not interested in doing so, nor do we need to.”

Relations between Russia and Britain are at their lowest level since the Cold War. They deteriorated further after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Britain and other NATO members have provided large amounts of military aid and other support to Kyiv.

China’s embassy in London also criticized Britain’s defense review, saying in a statement on Tuesday that the document deliberately misrepresented Beijing’s defense policy to justify British military expansion.

The review had described China as “a sophisticated and persistent challenge,” citing its rapid military modernization, including an expanded nuclear arsenal, and saying Beijing was likely using espionage and cyberattacks, and stealing intellectual property.