Investigating Amatheon Agri’s Zambian Operations

“Have you seen how people are running?” Teddy Mumba [name changed] asks us. “Your SUV looks like the one used by Amatheon Agri. When they come, we all flee in fear, even the old people.”

Ten men and seven women sit between simple mud huts and broad-leaved trees. They all nod in agreement. It is November 2023. Accompanied by Mutinta Nketani from the civil society network Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity (ZAAB), I am visiting small-scale food producers living in Chembe in the Mumbwa district of Zambia.

It is here, in 2012, that the German investor Amatheon Agri took out a 99-year lease for an area of land almost the size of Lake Constance, where it primarily grows corn and soy in monocultures. It is the largest German agricultural investment on the African continent, and the region has been rife with conflicts over water and land for several years. Two watercourses that were once used by the local community flow through Amatheon’s land. The company has also erected two dams on the Kapwashe River, which have resulted in water shortages and in some cases a complete lack of access in other areas.

Chembe is located to the west of the Kapwashe I dam. The locals tell us that the river is their only source of water, as they have no wells. But Amatheon forcibly prohibits their access to this water source. “We’re threatened and punished if we go to the river”, Oidy Choongo explains, “but we depend on it”. She recounts how she was arrested by Amatheon security guards and imprisoned by the police.

Mary Mawele [name changed] also tells us a troubling tale: “I was washing my laundry by the river when I heard a gunshot. I turned to see a man standing behind me in a police uniform. I was brought to the Amatheon building, where I was kept for eight hours.” Oidy Choongo moved to this area west of the Kapwashe River in 2009, three years before the arrival of Amatheon. Like the other farmers in the region, she grows corn and soy during the rainy season. In drier months, vegetable gardens planted along the riverbank provide them with food and income, which they use to send their children to school.

The rainy season usually begins in November, but due to the effects of climate change, it is now much drier. “Our harvests so far have been lousy”, says Oidy. She explains that the families in the area have therefore come to rely more heavily on their vegetable gardens, which require watering throughout the whole year. “But we can’t do that anymore.”

More than half of Zambia’s population subsists on less than 1.90 dollars per day, and the situation in rural areas is especially precarious.

In 2019, Amatheon employees uprooted local farmers’ tomato plants, poured herbicides on leafy vegetables, and then set them on fire. The district chairperson who went on to survey the situation on site ultimately concluded that the cultivation of vegetables on the riverbank was perfectly legal. But Oidy no longer dares to do so. “We’re starving”, she says. She has reduced her daily food intake to two meals per day and has withdrawn her children from school because she can no longer afford their tuition fees.

In Zambia, two thirds of the population live in poverty, and half of the population is starving. The country has been plagued by drought for months, and the Global Hunger Index ranks the southern African country 110 out of a total of 125 countries. The allegations against Amatheon Agri are grave, pertaining to the human rights to access to food, water, and education. The investor, however, denies all of the allegations. Yet Amatheon’s managing director Max Sturm does admit: “Sometimes, at the request of the local police, our security personnel will arrest and convict individuals who are caught poaching, felling trees, or illegally producing charcoal on our land. These individuals are then handed over to the police in Mumbwa by our security team.”

But according to Sturm, there was “never an agreement authorizing community access to Amatheon Agri Zambia’s private dam for the purpose of watering livestock”, and the communities impacted have received compensation. The company surmises that the people we spoke to in Zambia had probably settled in the region after the dam had been built and were now hoping to be compensated, too.

“The disputes between Amatheon Agri and the local communities in Zambia are characteristic of so many of the conflicts over land and water that we’re witnessing in many other countries”, says Jan Urhahn, head of the Food Sovereignty Programme at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, which has been working with ZAAB and other organizations in Zambia for many years. Today, 70 percent of all existing arable land worldwide is controlled by only one percent of the largest farms, and companies like Amatheon Agri are reinforcing these trends to the detriment of local populations and the natural world.

Roughly 20 kilometres north of Chembe, the school day has come to an end, and children clad in school uniforms play by the well, cooling their feet in its waters. A dozen farmers congregate in front of it. They live to the north and north-west of the Amatheon site and practise traditional pastoral farming. They, too, speak of conflicts that have arisen since the company erected the dams: “This was once the water source for our goats and oxen”, says John Nkala [name changed]. “Now, we have to walk a great distance in order to water them.”

If livestock enters Amatheon’s land, the company would confiscate it. The farmers would be forced to pay 500 kwacha (approximately 19 US dollars) per animal to retrieve them. For the farmers, this is a considerable sum of money: according to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), more than half of Zambia’s population subsists on less than 1.90 dollars per day, and the situation in rural areas is especially precarious. John explains: “Say a calf dies because the farmer wasn’t able to buy the cow back. That means the families lose their income or are forced to abandon livestock farming entirely.”

This is another allegation that Sturm refutes. He insists that “the claim that livestock owners have been mistreated or wronged” is untrue and that fines are only issued in the event of animals’ “repeated unauthorized access” to the company’s land. “Amatheon Agri strictly adheres to Zambian law”, writes Sturm.

In Zambia, two thirds of the population live in poverty, and half of the population is starving

In order to interrogate these claims, the human rights organization FIAN Zambia commissioned a legal opinion on the matter: according to the report, the fines stipulated under Zambian law for the breaching of private borders by livestock are actually considerably lower than those charged by Amatheon. If the area in question is not enclosed by a fence, it may even be debatable whether the animals can be seized at all and whether the farmers can be fined. There is certainly no fence around the site where the German investor has been conducting its dubious actions against local farmers.

Laston Mwinga has lived to the south of Chembe on the border of Amatheon’s site since 2005. “I’ve already paid a great deal of money to that company”, he says, showing us photos of more than a dozen invoices from Amatheon. “You can see from the brand marks that the animals are mine, they could have called me.” But they didn’t. In 2019, he had wanted to redeem his 65 cattle, but 24 animals were missing. He didn't get them. Instead, he was threatened and sent to prison.

In June 2024, Oidy and Laston travelled to Berlin. They were invited to the Policies Against Hunger Conference, organized by the German government to mark the 20-year anniversary of the introduction of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Adequate Food. They also hoped to be able to speak to Amatheon while in Berlin. The agricultural investor, which was founded in 2011 by Lars Windhorst, a speculator, and Carl Heinrich Bruhn, former manager of the Müller dairy company, has its headquarters in the German capital. But Amatheon refused to meet with the Zambian visitors.

The pair’s meeting with the German Federal Foreign Office also proved disappointing, with representatives claiming to see no possible course of action. In this case, Germany would be obligated to intervene — according to a General Comment issued by the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “[s]teps should be taken by States parties [sic] to prevent their own citizens and companies from violating the right to water of individuals and communities in other countries.”

The German Embassy in Zambia, which is aware of the allegations against Amatheon, is answerable to the German Federal Foreign Office. Yet while the embassy maintains favourable relations with Amatheon in Zambia, thus far, neither Ambassador Anne Wagner-Mitchell herself nor any members of her embassy staff have met with the local farmers impacted by the conflicts and listened to their side of the story. In 2022, a meeting was planned that was to be chaired by the district administration and involve Amatheon, the German Embassy, and 30 of the farmers directly impacted by the situation. The meeting was declined — first by Amatheon, and then by the embassy.

In July, a helicopter lands on sandy soil, and Zambian president Hakainde Hichilema steps onto a red carpet that has been unfurled there. He is visiting Amatheon Agri in Mumbwa, accompanied by Amatheon founder Lars Windhorst, who is now the managing director of Tennor Holding — itself Amatheon Agri’s largest single shareholder. Windhorst is an elusive character. His business dealings are controversial and generally regarded as opaque, and he is being investigated by Germany’s federal financial supervisory authority, BaFin. Shortly before Windhorst is due to travel to Zambia, a warrant for his arrest is revoked.

The allegations against Amatheon Agri are grave, but the investor denies everything.

In Mumbwa, there is a celebration for Windhorst as the founder of Amatheon. The cause for the celebration? A new investment of an additional 50 million US dollars. Hichilema and Windhorst are joined by Bernhard Trautner from the German Embassy. Trautner thanks the company for its “accomplishments with respect to economic, social, and ecological sustainability”.

At the same time, there is a new conflict looming on the horizon: thanks to the initiative of landowners, including Amatheon, a number of households have now been issued with eviction notices. According to FIAN Zambia, this move may impact up to several thousand people. Videos show huts being burned to the ground, and people report acts of violence. Yet Amatheon managing director Sturm claims that those impacted are some 500 illegal settlers, poachers, and loggers, and that the evictions are being carried out by official authorities in accordance with a court order.

One day after this high-profile event with the president, an injunction comes into effect that would prohibit Amatheon from entering the contested territory. The legal action is believed to have been launched by local chief Kaindu, but Sturm issues a formal statement claiming that the local chief has denied any participation in the lawsuit. According to FIAN Zambia, a meeting took place between Chief Kaindu and Amatheon shortly beforehand. Immediately afterwards, the injunction was withdrawn. As Mutinta Nketani from ZAAB states:

Land is more than just the earth beneath our feet — it is the foundation for the food systems that sustain us all. And water is the essence of life! It is high time that policymakers in Zambia took measures to protect local communities — especially women — from being dispossessed of their land and worked towards democratizing land ownership. Only then will we be able to ensure a sustainable future for our natural world, for food production, and for local communities.

The German Federal Foreign Office did not respond to the author’s questionnaire on the conflicts and her research conducted on the ground.

A slightly modified version of this article was first published in the Frankfurter Rundschau. Translated by Louise Pain and Anna Dinwoodie for Gegensatz Translation Collective.