Karuturi Global plans Ethiopia exports to South Sudan and Kenya by 2014

Karuturi Global, the city-based publicly-held floriculture major which has leased land in Ethiopia for commercial farming, is mulling to export cereals, sugar and edible oil to South Sudan and Kenya upon completing cultivation in 2014. The company by 2014, is expected to have a million tonnes of cereals, 100,000 tonnes of edible oil and 200,000 tonnes of sugar.

Meanwhile, the firm has so far completed cultivation of 15,000 hectares, and plans to complete 20,000 hectares of cereals and 15,000 hectares of sugar cane by next year.

The Horn of Africa country has earmarked some four million hectares of land for firms seeking to invest in agriculture, often around remote and sparsely-populated regions in its west. Karuturi Global is among 32 firms that has clinched land in the vast country, and is farming rice and cereals on its 100,000 hectares plot in Gambella province.

Karuturi Global, is the largest producer of cut roses in the world, with are area of over 292 hectares under Greenhouse cultivation and an annual production capacity of around 555 million stems. Equipped with a robust and de-risked business model, Karuturi Global’s other fast-growing business realms are food processing, floriculture retail including a flower auction portal and information technology.