German police

Cannabis plants found in a German farmer's field in the southern state of Bavaria. The man said he hadn't realized what the plants were, police said.

A 74-year-old farmer in a small town in southern Germany planted more than 1,000 cannabis plants in the mistaken belief they were sunflowers, police told NBC News Wednesday.  

Alerted by worried locals, German police visited the man in Moembris, a town in the southern state of Bavaria, on Tuesday and told him to destroy the crop on his one-acre field. The man, whose name was not released, usually grows potatoes in the field.

The man told officers that he had scattered half a sack of old bird seed and was taken aback by the fast growth of the plants -- some of which were quickly as tall as 10 feet -- but still did not realize what they actually were.

"The friendly elderly gentleman was surprised at the strange plants that had grown next to the flowers but did not identify them as cannabis plants," a police statement said.

“The farmer promptly plowed up the field with the tractor under the watchful eyes of the police,” police spokesman Stefan Brabetz told NBC News.

In the press release, officials said that the type of cannabis was too weak to have intoxicating effect and could not have led to addiction.

“Nevertheless, the case is being presented to the local prosecutor’s office and a judge will have to decide whether formal charges need to be filed or not,” Stefan Brabetz said.

Under German law, it is a crime to “knowingly” grow cannabis.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Mexico arrests 'El Gordo,' alleged leader of Gulf Cartel drug gang
• Cringe! Britain's finance chief booed at Paralympic Games
• Chinese media: 'Many Chinese people dislike Hillary'
• In parts of China, BYO school supplies include desks
• Pistorious sorry for timing, not content, of Paralympics outburst
• 77-year-old Japanese man asks US mayor to look for items lost in tsunami
• Sun Myung Moon, founder of Unification Church, dies at 92

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

The Ethiopian government is forcing tens of thousands of people off their land so it can be leased to foreign investors,  Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Tuesday.

The Horn of Africa state has already leased 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres)  to foreign farm businesses and the U.S.-based rights group said that the government had plans to lease another 2.1 million hectares (5.2 million acres), Reuters reported.

Courtesy Human Rights Watch

The new village of Bildak in Ethiopia's Gambella region, which the semi-nomadic
Nuer who were forcibly transferred there quickly abandoned in May 2011 because
there was no water source for their cattle, according to Human Rights Watch.

HRW said that 1.5 million Ethiopians would eventually be forced from their land and highlighted what it said was the latest case of forced relocation in its report "Ethiopia: Forced Relocations Bring Hunger, Hardship."

"My father was beaten for refusing to go along [to the new village] with some other elders," HRW quoted a former villager as saying.  "He said, 'I was born here -- my children were born here -- I am too old to move so I will stay.'  He was beaten by the army with sticks and the butt of a gun. He had to be taken to hospital. He died because of the beating -- he just became weaker and weaker."

The United Nations has increasingly voiced concern that countries such as China and Gulf Arab states are buying swathes of land in Africa and Asia to secure their own food supplies, often at the expense of local people.

• Ethiopia jails two Swedish journalists for aiding rebels

"The Ethiopian government under its "villagization" program is forcibly relocating approximately 70,000 indigenous people from the western Gambella region to new villages that lack adequate food, farmland, health care, and educational facilities," HRW said, adding it had interviewed more than 100 people for the report.

"The first round of forced relocations occurred at the worst possible time of year -- the beginning of the harvest. Government failure to provide food assistance for relocated people has caused endemic hunger and cases of starvation," it said.

Government denial
Government officials deny the charge and say the affected plots of land are largely uninhabited and under-used, while it has also launched a program to settle tens of thousands from the remote province in more fertile areas of the country.

"Human Rights Watch has wrongly alleged the villagization program to be unpopular and problematic," government spokesman Bereket Simon told Reuters.

"There is no evidence to back the claim. This program is taking place with the full preparation and participation of regional authorities, the government and residents," he said.

Ethiopia says its prime intention in leasing large chunks of land is technology transfer and to boost production in a country that has been ravaged by droughts over the past few decades.

Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Italian shipwreck missing tally leaps to 29
• Al-Qaida raises flag over Yemen town
• Troops appear on streets as Nigeria president acts to cut fuel prices
• Flight diverts to Fla. after 'unruly' couple seeks Champagne in first class
• Israel-US war drill postponed over Iran tensions