After reading the editing made by Mr. Smail Chikhoune, following the two articles of your newspaper, taking up the main part of my investigations on the projections of the American group Aimag in Algeria, I bring the following Elements as an answer, which will be Both as a refinement and as a continuation of the same questions on the basis of new elements brought both by the clarifications of Mr. Chikhoune and by the continuation of the study of this file, which it’s publication has been delayed only by the expectation of replies from the parties cited in the articles subject to that right of reply.
I will answer point by point and take the reader in what I consider to be his right to understand the position of one or the other, or at least mine on this subject, and not mislead him.
I just want to shift two points of this answer, towards the beginning of my answer, because they relate both to the right of reply in question and to my personal writings on my own Facebook page.
Indeed, on my Facebook wall, which is a personal support where I intervene as a citizen, I cited the presumed relationship due to the geographical proximity between Mr. Chikhoune and the two protagonists of this group, In my opinion not insulting, as this is so far real, and as a person I am entitled to ask myself questions about this cumulative topographical hazard in a sensitive area of the United States of America, where anyone can check it on Google earth.
Mr. Chikhoune has every opportunity to formally deny this causality, denying any non-professional relationship with the creators of this group before its creation.
Regarding the attack on the sovereignty of the Algerian nationals, I consider that living in a modest neighborhood of Algiers and having never left it at the height of the security crisis to this day by having openly chosen my camp , I have no lesson to receive from Washington DC, which even at the latest news, is not the receptacle of this sovereignty that I measure with a scale of 3000 years towards the past and 3000 others towards the end, Future, except biblical cataclysm, and not by the yardstick of the conjunctural or interested positions of the others.
And I do not see how my skepticism about this famous business council is an attack on sovereignty, especially if it is considered that my investigation is due to a fear of certain aspects of sovereignty.
Mr. Chikhoune, who has lived in the United States since the 1990s, should be imbued with the political and legal climate of his new life, which entitles every American citizen to contest and even criticize the elected institutions of his country, and not only the various public or private structures or dispensaries of which he considers himself entitled to doubt the acts and motivations.
After 25 years in the United States he should have changed the vision of the time of his departure, which consisted in considering only deaf and dumb blind as good citizens not attacking the sovereignty of the country as seen by the exclusive holders of the keys and guarantees, of which he obviously belongs.
This particular point, in my view, is the only one on which Mr Chikhoune has a right of reply, because he was quoted even in the articles and not only on my wall, as living near the two main persons mentioned, and not just those two people.
To this end, it is also necessary to specify further proximities between AIAG and USABC, and between these two entities and the entire US defense institutions, including the Arlington cemetery. May be interpreted as evidence of that person’s ability to carry Algerian interests into the holy of holies of the American power.
Therefore personally I would have considered this as a compliment and not as an insult, if the choice of the place is not fortuitous of course.
For the other points raised, concerning both the Algerian parties, the AIAG and its Managers, as well as the draft itself, I believe that Mr. Chikhoune has volunteered more as a liaison and as an interested party than a right of reply in their name and place, on a file that obviously he does not master at all, but in which his involvement goes beyond the status of facilitator who befits his organization, which if one believes his site, watches over the local approaches of several Giants in various fields.
But I will answer in detail.
1 – Mr Chikhoune would have liked the analysis of the dossier in question to be made by an agronomist, in conjunction with the analysis made by me, and I think he is right, if he had not himself replied without any financial or agricultural expertise, by stamping his “Truths” closer to the marketing argument than to analysis of the facts.
2- To say that this type of project in general and this project in particular is likely to impede imports on all sides, is an assertion that engages only him, and contradicts the elements and figure of my analyzes without providing any scientific or accounting evidence to support that information, whereas I believe I have brought my evidence to contradict it digits by numbers.
- Suggesting that I defend the importation of all Azimuth, while I live in Algeria and suffer from its misdeeds, over the country and my person in passing, is another statement that does not defend itself on the argument.
On the other hand, evaluating a project in Algeria in dollar terms, and making projections worth US $ 800 million, fully oriented towards the American market for equipment and know-how supposedly useful to our lands, is a curious way of damning on imports, starting with massive imports.
- To affirm that this project of Al Bayadh, which is supported by another project of equally indefinite shape at Mostaganem, will stop the importation of milk powder, with 20,000 cows and 190 million liters a year, denotes total ignorance of the needs and mechanisms of the Algerian milk market.
These requirements, which are in the order of 4.5 billion liters a year, are supplemented in part by the massive importation of 350,000 tons of powder per year, which presupposes the existence of farms which are otherwise more substantial than which It defends, and which is not in conformity with the number of cows nor with the surface of fodder, neither with the water and financial needs projected by its experts.
This presupposes the existence in the country of a total of dairy cows of at least 600,000 Head, and as many hectares dedicated solely to fodder, or water needs of the order of 4.2 billion M3 or the retention capacity Of all our dams.
In the case of cereals, I do not know if Mr. Chikhoune knows that we import 14 million tons a year, and in order to make the best of it, the equivalent of 10 billion M3 of water will have to be devoted to this crop. More than 5 for milk, in order to arrive at this supposed self-sufficiency.
A volume of water that will never happen unless climatic inversion or biblical deluge happen meanwhile.
So let’s stop selling dreams to our fellow citizens as marketing arguments, this science based first on the logic of promises, except to reduce it to a sale of vacuum cleaners door-to-door, and here we are before another debate.
5- For the references that I would have omitted passing by, I would like to point out that at the time of writing my analysis, the AIAG website was almost empty on the 24th of January and had exactly the same information And addresses that AYABROS, and I hold the fac similis of the total interface of this site at that date.
The change took place on February 01, 2017 at 7:45 pm, with the provider, by the addition of Mr. Dirk Parkinson, as well as some acronyms of American boxes specialized in agricultural equipment and techniques, without any legal presence in what You can call a consortium, unless we have the same vision of this term and what it entails legally and financially as effects.
Because I cannot see a John deer or Spudnik, getting involved in an operation in progress in such way and without any advertisement outside of a sales operation in the state of equipment to the Algerian part, which is a business as usual companies of this scale.
6 – As far as Mr. Parkinson is concerned, he only appeared on the site with a few biographies that I already had mentioned before, on 01-02, I could not add to the two usual most prolific signatories, a third party that was not mentioned anywhere before.
But let’s talk about it since we are there.
Mr. Dirk Parkinson, specializing in apple seeds, on the side of St Antony in Idaho, a small Mormon village not very far from Salt Lake City.
He runs a family business of some 2,000 acres, or 800 hectares, of potatoes’ seeds, which represents 32,000 tons of seed per year. Which is something like 640,000 tons of potatoes in harvest, which is not negligible in absolute terms.
This does not make it the American leader of the potato seed, nor even Idaho’s.
As involved as Mr. Parkinson seems to be in the Algerian company, he is only personally involved in this matter and not in the name of his farm, which is in fact family farm, and cannot afford To invest in our country, with an annual turnover of up to 10 million dollars and a production margin of not more than 2 million.
Moreover, this gentleman works on an American variety that has nothing to do with those of the local terroir or that currently exploited here, for a total production of 5 Million tons, by farmers I cannot question the know-how In this area.
For your information I had to see the Algerian potatoes exported to Qatar in emergency, exhibited at a price much higher than their American counterparts, and in the photo of the supermarket this American variety didn’t make a proud face compared to ours.
7- The presence of this gentleman as part of this group does not give any precision on the form of his intervention in us nor the quality of his association with the Algerian part, apart from the fact that he is included in the AIAG As a partner.
8- For the two other AIAG protagonists, Mr Ted Ayash and Mr Dale Didion, this statement on their agricultural skills remains to be proved and only commits Mr Chikhoune as long as their Linkedin profiles, and even the New CVs recently published on the site, they do not rely on it, apart from an experience in a case of agriculture Hydroponique for Mr Didion which has not had a resounding success.
As for their training in American or other universities, it is a matter of specialization and not of university, and for Mr Ayash or Mr Didion, nothing in their course or career refers to agriculture, but for the second to political science And the first to a linguistic and commercial mastery, with each employer a reference to translations or defense cases, and it is in their public CVs not from me.
8- For the AIAG, Mr Chikhoune contradicts himself by referring to a consortium of US companies of the first category in agriculture, which are only external partners and possible suppliers of this Group on the site, and in no way as associated with statutory, And the assertion that SDBC is a business incubator.
A company like John Deer, which dates from Henri Ford’s early days in automobiles, is not going to be associated with a business launched in an incubator.
As a reminder, the notion of incubation refers in all possible disciplines to the one of Genesis, to the notion of matrix or culture broth, conducive to the birth of something, ranging from the useful bacteria to a company, passing by embryos.
And I cannot conceive an embryo of anything needing an incubator to be launched, becoming a consortium even before its cultivation, because the first agreements in Algeria were signed by this group even before its birth on 18-06-2015, at 4031 University Drive, Fairfax.
9- This brings us back to this famous address and its owners.
This building, not part of Georges Mason University, but of a business incubation center, itself part of a program called Mentors and Protected.
However, this program, piloted by this University in part, refers to Mentors which are all subdivisions of the US military and security agencies of this country.
And the protégés, among whom Ayabros at the beginning, and AIAG, whom Mr. Chikhoune just confirmed when I only suggested it in view of the curious fact that the two entities both created by Ted Ayash between 2009 and 2015 they share the same premises in this building .
At the same time, and to remain in the managerial and marketing capacities of Mr. Ayash’s business and production, someone could explain how Ayabros, created in 2009 by the same manager in the same premises as the AIAG, Has no assets, liabilities or information relating to any activity, even sporadic, to the commercial authorities of the state of Virginia?
10- Referencing to two Algerian parties, I have simply taken over statements made public by the protagonists of the two projects, and I do not see why the Tifra Lait project suddenly became an agreement Which was unimportant in the eyes of Mr. Chikhoune, who, in view of the officials and media mobilized for the occasion, seemed to announce an imminent and productive project in the near future.
It is up to this gentleman to explain why this second agreement should be secondary and unimportant to me, since he took an ambassador to the desert of tamentit for his promotion.
11- For the first project, from Al Bayadh, I do not need to count the equipment and the pipes on the site of 1400 hectares to get an idea of the project and its actual existence, Mr. Bouarroudj Was kind enough to send me dozens of photos and to give me his version of the facts, and to invite me to consult the documents inherent to these agreements and on-site management, to which I replied that I Had no quality to do this, but that he could send them to the newspaper and his answers with, under the universal right of reply.
The questions I raised are about the nature of this association, the consistency of the American group, its contributions justifying the 49%, the distribution of assets and liabilities under this agreement, and especially their financial and material consistency once implemented.
As a result, the response of the Algerian side, whose projects and interests are the first concern of the Algerians, is more apt to lift the doubts and apprehensions about the future and the motivations of each other.
12- Concerning the Algerian Law on Agricultural Land, which dictates granting the concession only to the Algerian side, and not to the entity subject to joint venture, this is a worl’s first in terms of investment and That even the governor of Mecca did not dare to oppose to foreigners the prohibition in Mecca on the physical presence of non-Muslims and not their property rights over their possible investments.
But let us start with this postulate, confirmed by Mr. Bouarroudj, for that matter.
This brings other sources of questioning, on the nature of this association, on the motivations of the American part and even more on their financial contributions, if there are contributions at all of course.
Having a Financial Training and touched some business law, I can enumerate here dozens of possible assemblies and legally imaginable, to make this law void in its practical application, or the project itself obsolete in its literal application.
Mr. Chikhoune may well explain to us the status of these lands, in the association that gave birth to a local legal entity, registered in the national registry of commerce of course.
For if they belong to the Lacheb group, their joint exploitation can be done only under the seal of the association or the Algerian part bringing the land to lease or temporary borrowing, valuing it, and the American part the funds and the Know how to make in proportion to the valorization of the project.
In another case, the Algerian side will have put the funds and land in the purse, with nothing but a supposed technical experience on the opposite side.
In the third case, both parties use local or foreign banks on local guarantees, and this concession will have to be part of the guarantee, and the US party will have a right of control over this 49 basis. %, or a participation in this rate, in a project where everything is local at the end of the course.
There is strictly no logical formula on earth to make these lands escape the object of association outside a bank mortgage, and obviously this is not the case so far.
General conclusion.
I have no other motivation in this analysis than my doubts about the feasibility of the project, its usefulness over the medium term and the reliability of the American partner, as well as the financing aspect of this project, Millions of dollars, and no dinars.
These doubts and questions that go along with, are, I think my right by my birth on this earth, and by my vision shared by other Algerian experts in other fields including agricultural on the reliability and viability of this Kind of partnerships, with rather blurry outlines, to those who are as little acquainted with national agricultural data and even with agriculture itself.
Mr. Chikhoune’s reply, far from dissipating my doubts, merely reinforces my apprehensions about the real motivations of each party, as he responded to the essential points on all the points raised, and reiterated his leitmotivs on independence Foods contradicted by all the figures put on the table.
It would have been better for him and AIAG to disclose my figures on the reliability of this project, and the production projections they made in their public statements, as I proceeded to disassemble theirs.
I think seriously that only the Algerian side is able to provide the necessary clarifications to enlighten my lantern on the agreements concluded with this American entity, on which I fully retain my apprehensions reinforced by this reply.
Still is pending the pinpoint of the compatriot side of the project, if she will give them, and use her right of reply.
This reply is valid both for Mr. Chikhoune and for AIAG, who used his right on the same medium and on the same day.
The arguments being the same for both parties, I do not see any need to respond separately to them.
Article wrote originally in French by Mr Ferhat Aït Ali, translated by our team.
This Article should not be published without Mr Ferhat Aït Ali or our previous consent.
Part one of the investigation:https://themaghrebtimes.com/02/14/algeria-american-aiag-saharan-agriculture-looks-like-clandestine-passenger-partnership/
