"My ambition is to develop these 300,000 hectares and go past to a million hectares," says Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi pointing to a map of Africa in his office in Bangalore in southern India.

Ambitious as its sounds, Karuturi Global is now one of the biggest private land owners in the world.

They have invested over a quarter of a billion dollars in Ethiopia and Kenya alone.

Over 300,000 hectares in Gambela, Ethiopia, have already been leased and they want to start large scale commercial agriculture there.

Apart from Ethiopia, the company is looking at developing large farm tracts as agro-economic zones in Sierra Leone, Senegal, Tanzania and Mozambique.

Its race to get ahead in Africa began in a small rose farm in Doddaballapur, near Bangalore in southern India.

Under the protective cover of green houses, are rows of sweet smelling roses in pale yellows, bright oranges and pinks.

Cutting the long stems with precision are workers who gather the flowers in buckets and send it to be processed.

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