Egypt

Egypt, the world's top wheat importer, said on Monday it will send a committee to inspect suitable farmland in Uganda to grow wheat.

A delegation of 26 Egyptian agriculture companies led by Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza, is now inspecting land proposed by the Ethiopian government for Egyptian investment projects.

“We are now looking very seriously into Sudan,” said Zouhair Eloudghiri, chief executive officer of Savola Foods Co., a unit of Saudi Arabia’s second-largest publicly traded food producer, Savola Al-Azizia United Co.

"I think it is not right to sell or give your land to foreigners... until you have exhausted every local possibility," said Osama Daoud, chief executive of the Sudanese DAL group which runs large agricultural projects.

Inversores árabes y asiáticos buscan tomar el control de amplias extensiones de tierras fértiles en Sudán, el país más grande de África, que quiere convertirse en el granero de Oriente Medio, aunque para ello deberá modernizar primero su agricultura.

"Al Shariqi said that while the government does not have foreign agricultural investments, some UAE sheikhs personally own land in Pakistan, Egypt, Australia and New Zealand," reports the US mission in Abu Dhabi

Jannat has a target of securing 100,000 to 215,000 hectares of land abroad, including $100m in African investments, says Mohammed Abdulla al-Rajhi, chairman of Jannat and deputy chairman of Tadco.

Saudi-based Almarai Co says it plans to take a 50 percent share of the dairy market in Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, by 2013, a report said.

Asked why he was attracted to Sudan, where Citadel got 200,000 ha of farmland betting on a continued global commodities rally, Chairman Ahmed Heikal said: "Almost free land, available water, fantastic climate, fantastic land quality -- why not Sudan?"

Stephen Murphy, managing director of institutional fundraising, said the firm had eyed agriculture and infrastructure investments in Uganda.

Interview with Kieran Forde, an Irishman who works in Saudi Arabia for the Tabuk Agriculture Company (TADCO), which will be shifting food production for the Saudi market to Egypt

Cambodia will be the fourth country after Sudan, Egypt and Pakistan to receive UAE investments intended to achieve a food security plan drawn up by the government. Large-scale planting on Cambodian land acquired through purchase or 99-year lease may be launched there next year.