Cultivating a fortune

GLB Invest (GLB), a Lebanese offshore company based in Sudan, is developing an $800 million alfalfa production project in Sudan with plans to primarily export the crop to Saudi Arabia. $200 million has been invested by Firas Badra, president of FB Holding, which owns GLB.  This alfalfa plant is GLB’s first venture into agricultural production. Their business so far has focused primarily on agricultural trading through Golden Grain, their grain trading company, and FB Negoce, which trades in sugar, rice and fast moving consumer goods in Lebanon and the wider Middle East region. Badra admits that he lacks experience in agricultural production but says he has hired experts from France and Spain to run the project’s operations and ensure quality.  “The queen of forage” Alfalfa is known as the “queen of forage” and is either dried as hay or mixed with other crops for feeding dairy cattle. Its main advantages