By Bassey Udo

The Nigerian government on Thursday extended invitation to Russians to take advantage of the country’s arable land to produce and export agricultural products.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo gave the invitation when a Russian delegation led by the Russian Minister of Agriculture, Alexander Tkachev, called on him on Thursday.

“The oil prices have gone down tremendously and yet large amount of foreign exchange is used to purchase food abroad and we have large arable land for agric. It won’t make sense, if you don’t use the land,” Mr. Osinbajo said.

“We are inviting Russian farmers to invest in Nigeria, produce and import from here. We are just six hours away from Europe by air. Vegetables, flour can be exported to Europe from here. Even our local market here is a lot.”

Mr. Osinbajo said the availability of arable land in Nigeria made the case for improved local agricultural production in Nigeria an imperative, rather than continued importation with its significant pressure on dwindling foreign earnings of the country.

Both the vice president and the delegation that included Russian deputy minister of agriculture, Evgeny Gromyko, and officials of Russian firm (Rusal) agreed that the two countries should deepen the existing diplomatic relationship, especially economically.

The vice president assured his visitors, which included the Russian ambassador in Nigeria, Nikolay Udovichenko, there was a lot of money to be made if Russian technology in agriculture was deployed locally.

Earlier, the Russian agriculture minister, who is the Co-Chair of the Nigeria-Russia Joint Commission, expressed his country’s willingness to enhance the existing trade relations with Nigeria.

He noted that the Nigeria-Russia trade volume as at the end of 2015 exceeded $300 million, adding that there were potentials for improvement in the years ahead.

The Russian minister said there were better opportunities for economic cooperation between both countries.

Maputo — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday welcomed the recent decision by the Bank of Mozambique to hike interest rates in order to slow down the growth in the rate of inflation.

Speaking in Maputo, where he presented an IMF report on recent economic developments in su-Saharan Africa, the Fund’s representative in Mozambique, Ari Aisen, described the central bank’s measures as “courageous”.

The Bank of Mozambique’s Monetary Policy Committee announced on 21 October an immediate increase in the Standing Lending Facility (the interest rate paid by the commercial banks to the central bank for money borrowed on the Interbank Money Market) by 600 base points, from 17.25 to 23.25 per cent. The Standing Deposit Facility (the rate paid by the central bank to the commercial banks on money they deposit with it) also rose by 600 base points from 10.25 to 16.25 per cent.

The Compulsory Reserves Coefficient – the amount of money that the commercial banks must deposit with the Bank of Mozambique – which had been divided into two, for local and for foreign currency, has now been reunited, and stands at 15.5 per cent for all currencies, For deposits in local currency, the metical, that is an increase of 250 base points, while for deposits in foreign currency the increase is only 59 base points.

Aisen said these measures were correct to control inflation. “There’s an effort on the fiscal side”, he said. “On the monetary front, there’s been an increase in the compulsory reserves” – and such measures were key “to mop up excess liquidity”.

“The central bank understood that monetary policy needed to take a stance that confronted the rise in inflation”, he added. “I think the Bank of Mozambique recognized that it had to take measures to deal with inflation”.

Aisen’s only criticism was that the measures had come rather late, and so were tougher than would have been the case had the bank acted in good time. (The delay, however was almost certainly due to the appointment of a new governor, Rogerio Zandamela, a former IMF official. There was a hiatus of three months between the last meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee chaired by the then governor, Ernesto Gove, and the first meeting chaired by Zandamela).

Aisen added that the solution to the current economic crisis involves the implementation of structural reforms, improvements in the planning of public investment, strengthening the capacity to analyse fiscal risk, and prudent management of the public debt.

Meanwhile, some of Mozambique’s creditors have formed a “creditors’ committee”, after taking alarm at last month’s warning by the Minister of Economy and Finance, Adriano Maleiane, that the country’s current debts are unsustainable and must be restructured.

The “creditors’ committee”, according to a report from the Reuters news agency was formed by 60 per cent of the holders of Mozambique’s 2023 Eurobond.

This is what remains of the bonds for 850 million dollars issued in 2013 by European banks (notably Credit Suisse and the Russian bank VTB) on behalf of the Mozambique Tuna Company (EMATUM).

This debt has already been restructured once. In early April, the government on Tuesday ratified the deal under which the securities issued by EMATUM were replaced by sovereign government bonds with a longer repayment time, but at a higher interest rate. This was only possible after the great majority of the bondholders – 81.5 per cent – had agreed to the swap.

The proposal accepted by the bondholders was that the EMATUM bonds (now down to 697 million dollars, after the first repayments) would be swapped for government bonds for 585.5 million dollars that mature in 2023. The interest rate, however, shoots up to 10.5 per cent. (The initial rate had been LIBOR (London Inter-Bank Offered Rate) plus 6.5 per cent).

For the government, the advantage was that it would not have to repay the capital until 2023. Until then it will only be obliged to make annual interest payments. The government’s assumption was that by 2023 revenue will be flowing in from the vast natural gas fields in the Rovuma Basin, off the coast of the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

The deal gave the government an extra two years to repay, and the yearly burden on the treasury fell from 200 million dollars to about 76 million.

But this deal was reached before the full scale of Mozambique’s indebtedness became clear, and before it was common knowledge that Credit Suisse and VTB had, with Mozambican government guarantees, lent a further 1.1 billion dollars to two more quasi-public companies, Proindicus and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management).

Ematum, Proindicus and MAM pushed Mozambique’s debt over the threshold of sustainability. When, on 25 October, Maleiane presented the true situation to a meeting of creditors in London, he admitted that it was impossible to repay the debt on the current servicing programme.

The figures in the government’s document showed that debt service, including arrears, is 675.2 million dollars this year, rising to 803.8 million dollars in 2017, 826.8 million in 2018 and 865.5 million in 2019. From 2017 to 2019, easily the largest slice of the debt service goes on the EMATUM, Proindicus and MAM loans – this will be 591.2 million dollars in 2017, 377.3 million in 2018, and 359.8 million in 2019.

The government is thus looking for an agreement with creditors that will bridge the gap between now and 2021, when the revenues from the Rovuma gas fields should be flowing. It wanted to reach agreement with the creditors “on terms compatible with IMF debt sustainability criteria as soon as possible”. It suggested an agreement in principle with creditors on a “debt resolution proposal” by December, and in January the agreed debt resolution strategy would be implemented.

The Ematum bondholders were taken by surprise. In their statement on setting up the creditors’ committee they said that other commercial and multilateral lenders ought to be first in line to provide debt relief.

“The formation of the GGMB (Global Group of Mozambique Bondholders) was triggered by Mozambique’s surprise announcement on October 25, 2016 that it intends to seek a restructuring of the entirety of its external commercial debt, including the 2023 bonds that creditors agreed to restructure only six months ago,” their statement said.

They have no intention of negotiating now, and demanded that negotiations with the government should only begin once an independent debt audit had been completed and published.

This refers to the audit of Ematum, Proindicus and MAM that will be undertaken by the company Kroll, regarded as the top forensic auditing company in the world. Kroll has been given 90 days from signing its contract to deliver the audit.

If the bondholders stick to their current position, negotiations with the government could not start before February, at the earliest.

By Mohammed Momoh

Nigeria has resolved to stop the importation of wheat from Russia to help save its foreign currency reserves.

The decision was announced following the end of the fourth Joint Commission meeting between Russia and Nigeria in Abuja at the weekend.

Nigeria spent $880 million on wheat imports last year and has already spent $660 million in 2016.

Foreign Affairs minister Hajiya Khadija Abba-Ibrahim said Nigeria would instead invite Russians to help them improve their agricultural productivity.

“We import a lot of wheat from Russia and we are telling Russia that this has to stop.

“We want the Russian companies and farmers to come to Nigeria to show us how we can grow our agriculture sector with modern technology,” the minister said.

The Russian delegation was led by the deputy head Russian Delegation in Nigeria, Mr Dianov Alexandar Yurievich.

The value of wheat imported into Nigeria between January and September 2016 was $660m, according to data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Nigeria, in the first week of November, imported approximately 53 million metric tons valued at $7.8 billion.

Nigeria has stepped up wheat production and has hit 60,000MT, ranking it 61st out of 79 countries in global production.

According to data from the Central Bank of Nigeria, the country spends $11 billion (N3.1tn) annually to import wheat, rice, sugar and fish.

Nigeria’s food import was growing at an unsustainable rate of 11 per cent per annum.

Wheat is in high demand in Nigeria as a raw material for bakery and feed mills.

Meanwhile, members of Nigeria’s Shiite Muslim sect staged peaceful protests today for the second day running to press for the release of their detained spiritual leader, Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, who has been held since December last year.

They were also protesting against the proscription of the sect by the government.

The founder of Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), an umbrella body of Shiites and some of his followers, has been held in various prisons since the sect’s clash with the military.

The clash in December in Zaria, a university town in Kaduna state, claimed more than 380 members of the sect.

President Muhammadu Buhari, in a national broadcast, accused the Shiites of holding their communities hostage.

Pretoria — Government has sent its condolences to the families of those who were killed in yesterday’s heavy floods.

Six people died due to the flash floods and a three-year-old girl is still missing in Alexandra.

The downpour battered some parts of Gauteng on Wednesday afternoon, leaving a trail of destruction, with many cars being swept away and some homes being flooded.

“Our thoughts are with the families of the victims and those that were injured and affected by the storm. It is sad and unfortunate that a child went missing yesterday during the floods,” Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) Acting Director General Donald Liphoko said.

The police are hard at work searching for the child.

Liphoko said government empathises with those who have lost their properties and belongings during this time.

The Gauteng Provincial Government has activated the disaster management centre to coordinate investigations into the extent of damage caused by the flash floods.

The SA Weather Service has issued an alert for severe thunderstorms in Gauteng today.

Community members are advised to avoid crossing low lying bridges, streams and rivers; and encouraged motorists to exercise caution and avoid driving on flooded areas.

Motorists are advised to pay attention to barricades and to not drive through standing water on roads or in parking lots.

During heavy rains, motorists must be on special alert near dips in the highway and near low-lying bridges. Parents are also advised to keep children away from playing in and near drainage ditches and storm water drains.

In the event of an emergency, residents of Gauteng should call the emergency management services on 10177.

By Bonang Masolotate

Swartkopfontein — The opening of Ngotwane Bridge between South Africa and Botswana is expected to unlock bilateral trade between the two countries.

The Minister of Transport and Communications, Mr Kitso Mokaila, said this on Monday during official opening of the bridge at Swartkopfontein Boarder Post in South Africa.

He said the bridge would speed up movement of goods, people and further promote development within the region.

“The development of the regional transportation infrastructure and expansion of capacities of transportation corridors remain key in the efficient distribution of goods and development in Southern Africa,” he added.

Mr Mokaila said the SADC road network was one of the region’s largest public sector assets.

He said productivity in virtually every sector of the economy was affected by the quality and related performance of the road and said it was therefore essential that the bridge was managed efficiently and effectively.

Mr Mokaila highlighted that the bridge project dated as far back as 2000 when the two counties met to map a way forward on how they could improve the existing river crossing structures between them.

He said the move initiated the bilateral agreement between the two governments in which Botswana was to fully fund the design and construction of Platjan Bridge while South Africa was tasked with the Swartkopfontein/Ramotswa Boarder Bridge.

Furthermore, he said Botswana completed the design of the Platjan Bridge in November 2009 and due to the financial meltdown, the bridge construction was suspended and added that currently funds are available for the project.

“The project is currently at tendering stage and I would like to point out that there were technical difficulties that caused the delay in implementing this project,” he said.

The South Africa Minister of Transport, Ms Dipuo Peters said the bridge which was constructed to a tune of R78.5 million created employment of about 51 jobs for South Africans and Batswana for a period of 23 months.

Ms Peters said the bridge connect the people of the two countries as well as creating new opportunities especially that the people of the two countries are related.

She said trade has grown between the two countries over the years and so is the movement of goods and people. Ms Peters added that the new bridge will ease pressure and de congestion at Zeerust and Pioneer Boarder gates.

During the bridge construction, nine Botswana labourers were engaged while two companies were also engaged while 42 South Africa and five companies were engaged.

Source : BOPA

By Kagondu Njagi

Namanga, Tanzania — Rangelands threatened further as pastoralists struggling to graze animals sell firewood so their families can eat

It is only 6 am but Veronica Lemungat is already setting up shop at the Namanga open-air market, on the Tanzania-Kenya border. She brushes twigs off her striped red and blue dress, and places a bundle of firewood at her feet.

Her back still aches from carrying the 10 kg (22 lb) load on the two-hour journey from Longindo, her village in northern Tanzania.

“I collect the firewood from the bush in the evening and go to the market in the morning because it is not too hot,” she explained.

Prolonged periods of drought in the region have depleted grazing land, forcing pastoralists to travel with their herds for weeks at a time – sometimes months – to look for greener pastures.

With their men gone, pastoralist women like Lemungat must find new ways to boost their income – by collecting and selling firewood, for example.

“Drought dries up rangeland vegetation, making firewood readily available in the bush,” Lemungat told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

For a 10 kg bundle of firewood, the mother of three makes 4,310 Tanzanian shillings (about $2) each day.

“With this money, I buy maize flour and vegetables to cook for my family,” she said. “It’s better than staying at home like I used to, with only sour milk to survive on during drought.”

KENYA BAN

Although Tanzanian law doesn’t expressly forbid collecting firewood in the wild, the country’s minister for agriculture, livestock and fisheries, Charles John Tizeba, told a conference in Nairobi in September the practice could lead to deforestation and encroachment of protected areas.

Harvesting rangeland vegetation is illegal in Kenya, however, which drives Kenyan traders to cross the border at Namanga, looking for firewood.

“I rely on firewood to make charcoal,” said Thomas Mwanzia, a Kenyan charcoal trader who buys wood at the Namanga market.

“Getting firewood in Kenya is becoming very difficult because the government protects natural resources like forests and rangelands.”

Another looming threat for Lemungat and other traders is Tanzanian youth, who have also identified firewood as a potential income source and trade it riding motorbikes.

“A motorbike can carry five times what I can carry on my back and reach the market faster,” said Lemungat. “The higher number of sellers is bringing firewood prices down in Tanzania.”

Collecting and selling firewood is not what she had hoped for in life.

In 2014, she tried to convince her husband to sell part of the family’s livestock and use the money to invest in a fresh milk business in Namanga. But he refused, saying his animals were more important.

According to Hellen Ntinina, a Maasai community leader in Namanga, “the main occupation among the Maasai is livestock herding – a man who owns livestock is respected by others”.

BRACELETS AND BEES

Dyno Keatinge, chair of the Association of International Research and Development Centers for Agriculture, a food security alliance, acknowledged that practices like collecting firewood may lead to deforestation in East African countries without laws to protect forests and the environment.

But there are other ways for pastoralists to boost their income without depleting rangelands, he added.

“Rather than directly exploiting natural resources, herders should have a good mixture of income-boosting activities to then withstand recurring drought if needed,” he said.

“Maasai women, for instance, are very good at making ornaments like bracelets and necklaces – the government should support that activity by linking the women to markets.”

George Marona, a community elder in Namanga, said non-profit groups like World Neighbors are training communities to set up modern beehives on rangelands, instead of harvesting the vegetation for firewood and charcoal burning.

The beehives have wooden frames where the honey is stored, which can be removed without crushing the bees, he said.

“This prevents people from using fire to scare away bees and harvest honey, as they normally do for traditional beehives, with flames that can lead to dangerous bush fires,” he explained.

($1 = 2,175.0000 Tanzanian shillings)

(Reporting by Kagondu Njagi, editing by Zoe Tabary and Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Foreigners buyers are deserting the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange in record numbers, with net outflows of US$56,28 million in the 10 months to October, the biggest sell-off in five years over government plans to introduce a token currency in the financial system.

Zimbabwe has sort to contain a cash shortage by introducing bond notes, which it says would trade at par with the US dollar. President Robert Mugabe on Monday used the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act to amend the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act to designate the bond notes as legal tender, effectively launching the new currency.

But questions remain about the legality of the instrument, which was used to bypass Parliament.

In May, the central bank announced its plans to circulate bond notes alongside the US dollar and other currencies in Zimbabwe’s multi-currency basket, which also includes South Africa’s rand, Botswana’s pula, China’s yuan, the euro, British pound and Japan’s yen.

The central bank says the surrogate currency will be backed by a US$200 million facility provided by the African Export Import bank.

The bank has not said when the notes will be brought into circulation.

Zimbabwe has suffered from a crippling cash shortage since the beginning of the year, and foreign investors appear to be unimpressed by the government’s move to introduce a local currency, eight years after it ditched the hyperinflation ravaged Zimdollar.

The central bank insists that the bond notes are not local currency, but President Mugabe has called them a “surrogate currency”, while vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa last week called them “a mode of transaction that is domestic”.

Foreign participation on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange recorded a net outflow of US$56,28 million in the 10-month period to October 31 this year, compared to US$306 000 over the same period last year.

In 2012 with Zimbabwe’s post-dollarisation recovery at its zenith a growth of 10,6 percent the ZSE recorded net inflows of US$51,983 million. In 2013 and 2014, it generated net inflows of US$82,962 million and US$93,201 million over the 10 months.

Analysts say government’s poor creditworthiness has also influenced foreign buyers’ investment decisions.

Chinamasa had predicted a budget deficit of US$150 million in the 2016 budget. As of June, this year, the deficit was at US$623 million.

In his mid-term, fiscal policy announced in September, Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa noted that: “There is a growing trend whereby international correspondent banks and other financial institutions terminate financial relations with financial institutions in the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group member states, including Zimbabwe.”

The process, commonly referred to as de-risking, has hit hard trade transactions and portfolio investments which largely rely on correspondent banking relationships.

Government is finding it difficult to raise about US$12 million required to carry out coal-bed methane gas geological surveys in Matabeleland North Province, the Financial Gazette’s Companies & Markets (C&M) can report.

Francis Gudyanga, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, told (C&M): “We are still looking for about US$12 million to do a bankable study, which will confirm the commercial viability of the gas.”

Zimbabwe discovered coal-bed gas deposits in Lupane’s Lubimbi basin a few years ago but has not been able to determine the extent of the gas wealth.

It is, however, believed that the area is endowed with more than 40 trillion cubic feet of potentially recoverable coal bed methane gas reserves, meaning that Zimbabwe could be the largest strategic energy source in Sub-Saharan Africa.

But the country has not carried out comprehensive exploration to determine the extent of the gas due to lack of funding.

Exploration, which helps the country with geological data, is the most important part of the mining cycle, a process through which commercial concentration of resources are discovered.

It covers activities from preliminary collection of existing geological data to drilling and sample assays.

Foreign investors have been scared by the country’s policies, especially the indigenisation programme which compels foreign owned companies to cede at least 51 percent stakes to blacks in the resources sector.

Government has through its project promoter Lupane Gas, a unit of the wholly-government owned Industrial Development Corporation, tried to raise the required amount for gas exploration but failed. This has hampered all efforts to prove whether the resource is commercially viable or not.

In 2015, government gave a special grant to a company called Discovery Investment Limited to start coal bed methane gas extraction at Mzola and Dandanda communal areas in Lupane.

The company had been seeking an investor to fund its activities but financiers have been dragging their feet after government indicated that it would have a stake in all renewable energy projects in the country.

Another firm, Gazprom, a Russian energy giant, last year expressed interest in the extraction of gas in Matabeleland North Province.

Gazprom’s major business lines are geological exploration, production, transportation, storage, processing and sale of gas and oil, and generation and marketing of heat and electric power.

It holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves and at least 12 percent of the global gas output. The firm has a market value of about US$51 billion.

The coal gas is a form of natural gas extracted from coal beds. In the past decade it has become an important source of energy being predominantly utilised in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries.

Methane gas, which is a colourless, odourless gas with a wide distribution in nature, is mostly used in power generation and fertiliser production.

It is the principal component of natural gas, a mixture containing about 75 percent methane, 15 percent ethane, and five percent other hydrocarbons, such as propane and butane.

By Ndumiso Mlilo

Johannesburg — Ten South African university students are leaving for China on Friday for a two-week information and communication technology (ICT) training held by Huawei in Beijing.

The study program “Seeds for the Future” is being bankrolled by the Chinese ICT giant, Huawei Technologies. This is the first batch of 1,000 South African students who will be trained over the next five years in ICT by Huawei.

The students were selected on merit from different South African universities. On Thursday night, South Africa’s Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services Dr. Siyabonga Cwele hosted a send-off reception during which he encouraged the students to come back with skills.

Bidding farewell to the students, Cwele said, “As you embark on this journey, remember that you carry with you hopes and dreams of the nation. Go out, seize and learn, I wish you safe travel and a journey back home full of knowledge and skills.”

He said the country has a deficiency in critical skills like ICT and the training will empower the students who will contribute to the country’s economic development upon their return.

Cwele said the students should expect to work hard in China. He said he went to a political school in China where they would work for long hours.

He said the Chinese are loyal, time-conscious and diligent and the students should expect that in China. He also said, “I urge you to make effective use of information and communication technologies to deepen your participation in the digital society.”

The students will be trained at the Huawei complex in China and other places as the training includes telecommunications networks, cloud computing and strategic global business initiatives, among others.

Likewise, China’s Economic and Commercial Counsellor Rong Yansong encouraged the students to work hard and come back with skills. He also praised Huawei for empowering the youth from South Africa and Africa and said when they return he expects them to contribute to the socio-economic development of their country.

“You represent the future of the country. All of you must cherish and take advantage of this to gain more ICT knowledge and understand more technology and make contributions to South Africa,” Rong said.

One of the students, Odwa Yekela, 24, told Xinhua that it will be his first trip to China and that he was very excited about it.

Yekela is pursuing a Master’s degree in ICT at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. He said, “It is a privilege and honor for us to be afforded this opportunity and I am excited about the journey. I want to be a future innovator.”

Yekela said that in 5-10 years’ time, he wants to be producing and innovating programs. He also said he has been an admirer of the Chinese culture and hopes to study for his Ph.D.in China.

Mashego Dibetle, a third-year student working on her Bachelor’s degree at Tshwane University of Technology, said that the students won’t disappoint their country.

She said they are grateful for the opportunity and they will return and contribute to the good of the country. She said, “We are not going to try to do the best but will do our best.”

By Okello Stephen

Amuru — Residents of Amuru District have warmed up to the government’s request to them to offer land for agricultural investors but put a caveat barring sugar cane growing.

This follows seven years of stalemate on the proposed giveaway of 40,000 hectares of land to Madhvani Group of Companies for sugarcane growing. The decision was reached during a meeting with Lands minister Ms Betty Amongi who visited the residents at Kalolo in Amuru Sub-county where the land in question is situated. The meeting aimed at convincing the residents to withdraw their Court of Appeal petition over the disputed land.

Former legislators Livingstone Okello Okello (Chwa County) Michael Ocula (Kilak), David Ochieng Penytoo (Gulu Municipality) and others in 2008 sued Madhvani Group of Companies, late Gen Julius Oketta and former Amuru Land Board secretary Christine Atimango for wrongfully allocating communal land to private investors.

However in 2012, Gulu High Court Judge William Musene ruled that the district land board had a right to give away the land for investment, something that did not go well with the locals and they appealed the case.

Mr James Onen, a land owner, said they have now accepted other investments apart from sugarcane growing, adding that even Madhvani is free to invest in the area as long as he abandons sugarcane growing.

“Crops like sunflower and rice can do well in the area and if we get investors in such areas, residents’ lives will be transformed,” Mr Onen said.

He faulted government officials and security agencies in the district whom he accused of misleading President Museveni that the locals are against investment in the district.

Democratic Party president also a born of Amuru District, Mr Norbert Mao, said: “We want investors to come and invest on our land, but they should come and negotiate directly with the land owners, not the so-called representatives.”

Meanwhile, the MP for Kilak North, Anthony Akol, denied allegations that they had received money to giveaway land without consulting locals.

No sugarcanes

The locals say they have now accepted other investments apart from sugarcane growing, adding that even Madhvani is free to invest in the area as long as he abandons sugarcane growing. They claim that crops like sunflower and rice can do well in the area.