Sudan

Some of the world's richest nations are coming to grow crops and export the yields, hoping to turn the global epicenter of malnutrition into a breadbasket for themselves.

Conséquence directe de la crise alimentaire mondiale et de la volatilité des cours, les projets d'achat ou de location de terres agricoles à grande échelle, parfois sur des centaines de milliers d'hectares, se multiplient.

"In a wide-ranging conversation, Sudanese business magnate Osama Daoud outlined a project to gradually develop as much as 1.26 million acres in northern Sudan for agricultural production," reports the US Embassy in Khartoum

Pakistan’s minister for privatization and investment, at a recently held forum in Dubai, announced that Pakistan was willing to provide land with 100 per cent ownership rights and that the buyers would be free in importing the agri-produce to their country as well.

Kuwait and Sudan will forge a “giant” strategic partnership to jointly invest in the agriculture sector

Sudan and Kuwait agreed today to enhance strategic economic partnership between the two countries especially in the field of agricultural investments.

On the heels of tight crop production reports and the recent memory of individual nations experiencing food disruptions, there is a scramble to control or own agricultural assets and food stocks.

Un mariage d’intérêt pourrait naître de l’excédent de liquidités dans les pays du Golfe et de l’abondance de terres arables en Afrique. C’est le vœu de Gulf Finance, Al Ihmar et Abu Dhabi Investment House, trois mousquetaires de la finance islamique qui viennent de mettre en place, fin août, un fonds d’investissement agricole appelé Agricapital.

The UAE and other Gulf oil producers are considering creating a giant fund to invest in farm in fertile Arab areas and other nations to slash a soaring import bill and ease reliance on foreign markets for their food.

The rulers in the Persian Gulf are looking at other ways of ensuring food security. Rather than rely on the vagaries of the market and unstable import sources, countries across the GCC, through sovereign wealth funds and development agencies, are seeking to buy up the means of production itself.

Gulf countries contemplating direct agro-investments in central Asia and Africa should evaluate the relative merit of these investments in comparison to similar potential in Eur-ope and Latin America, the Gulf Research Centre said in a recent report.

Qudra Holding plans to buy about 400,000 hectares of land in the Middle East, Africa and the Far East by the first quarter of 2009 to boost its agriculture operations, reported The National.