Itochu

Sierra Tropical Investment Company, a subsidiary of Dole Asia Holdings, has been given the green light to operate a 4,335 ha pineapple farm by the House of Parliament.

Itochu's $57.7m investment through its Dole business will include a 55 per cent increase of its 20,000 ha plantations in the Philippines by 2018

A Japanese trading conglomerate and the holding company of Thailand’s richest person acquire a fifth of Citic Ltd., in one of the biggest foreign investments in a Chinese state-owned company.

Talks with CITIC follow July agreement on business alliance between Itochu, Japan’s third-largest trading company, and the CP Group in an attempt to expand food supply in the world’s most populous region.

Companies linked to China's biggest agricultural conglomerate are being flooded with offers to buy or lease "hundreds of thousands" of hectares of land in Australia's Wheatbelt in the early stages of their bid to create an independent grain supply chain from the port of Albany.

NHK World video report looks at Itochu's efforts to grow soybeans for export in Mozambique in collaboration with JICA.

It is understood the agricultural division of the $163 billion Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has been sniffing around Australian agricultural land recently and has had discussions in Australia with landholders such as PrimeAg.

Australia approved a Chinese company's bid for giant (100,000 ha) cotton farm, including entitlements to a massive 537,000 mega litres of water, or enough to fill Sydney Harbour.

The Asian Peasant Coalition, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas and the Danggayan dagiti Mannalon ti Isabela say that because of farmers’ militant actions a bio-ethanol plant was victoriously shut down in San Mariano, Isabela, northeastern Philippines

At least 100 farmers joined a protest in front of the Department of Agriculture in Quezon City led by the members of the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) in the Philippines such as the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), AMIHAN (National Federation of Peasant Women), UMA (Union of Agricultural Workers), and the PAMALAKAYA (National Federation of Small Fisherfolks of the Philippines). Also present is the Anakpawis partylist and the National Network of Agrarian Reform Advocates (NNARA)-Youth.

An international fact-finding team is in the country to investigate the alleged land-grabbing by Philippine, Japanese and Taiwanese companies of some 11,000 hectares from indigenous peoples in Isabela to build the biggest bio-ethanol project in the Philippines.

After focusing for decades on oil, metals and minerals, Japan's huge trading houses are turning to agricultural commodities, with Tokyo enthusiastically supporting the shift amid concerns about local and global food security .