Gulf states continue quest for foreign land
- Reuters
- 17 July 2009
"We have no choice but to continue leasing and buying land," said Abdullah Al Obaid, head of the strategy unit at the Ministry of Agriculture in Saudi Arabia.
"We have no choice but to continue leasing and buying land," said Abdullah Al Obaid, head of the strategy unit at the Ministry of Agriculture in Saudi Arabia.
Private Saudi firm Planet Food World (PFWC) will invest around $3 billion in agriculture in Turkey over the next five years to export food products to the Gulf region, the head of its Turkish unit said.
The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir told the African Union summit in Libya that Sudan is willing to put its resources at the disposal of the continent.
When people are using lands under customary tenure arrangements, there is an inequality in bargaining power where no formal titles to the land exist if a foreign investor is interested in purchasing the land.
Carl Atkin, Head of Research at Bidwells Agribusiness looks at the recent interest in 'strategic food security' and the associated 'land grab' by Middle Eastern Corporations and Governments in countries as diverse of Sudan, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
Farm Radio Weekly correspondent, David De Dau spoke to people in the Madi community, who found themselves the victims of land grabbing in the post-conflict state of lawlessness.
It's a tsunami of land deals and, as all of the experts who have studied the phenomenon have agreed, no nation is truly prepared for its implications.
The Sekem Group, Egypt’s foremost producer and exporter of organic food to Europe and the US, is not a typical Egyptian enterprise.
Sudan and China are expected to sign a number of joint projects in the agricultural field
Cette ruée vers l’or vert en Afrique inquiète la plupart des paysans du continent, car ils ont peur d’être dépossédés de leurs terres pour aller grossir les bataillons des ouvriers agricoles.
As world population expands, the demand for arable land should soar. At least that's what George Soros, Lord Rothschild, and other investors believe.
The government said on Sunday that a draft agreement with the private sector on the stalled Jordanian agricultural megaproject in Sudan is being finalised in order to be sent to the Cabinet for approval.v