Ethiopia has availed 3.6 million hectares of arable land to agribusiness investors seeking to set business in the horn of Africa nation, 2markato.com reported.

The country’s Agriculture, Investment and Land Administration Agency representative, Asres Argaw, said 470,000 hectares land had already been provided for Ethiopian and foreign investors for the cultivation of cotton, palm trees and sugarcane.

The Ethiopian government is working to increase the private sector’s participation in the agriculture sector, Argaw was quoted saying.

He added that the Ethiopian government is trying to create conducive investment policies and strategies as well as incentives  to attracted more investors, with an emphasis on increasing coffee plantations.

There has been increased investment in Agriculture across Africa in the last half a decade as agriculture investors target countries such as Ethiopia to meet growing global food requirements.

The world’s population is expected to increase to 9 billion people by 2050, and agricultural production will need to increase 70 percent by then to feed everyone, according to the World Bank.

In recent developments, Saudi Arabia agribusiness investors have pulled out of their Ethiopian investments after relation between the two countries collapsed following the deportation of thousand of Ethiopians from the middle eastern nation due to an unemployment crisis.