UAE

The company is currently looking at concluding another deal in Africa as well as other opportunities on behalf of regional investors for large scale production of crops in areas such as Africa, Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Local food companies are not financially capable of investing in farmlands abroad to grow basic staples that would insulate them from soaring prices of raw materials, they said on the sidelines of Gulfood 2011.

Dubai business leaders have urged the Government to snap up farmland overseas to grow basic staples as a buffer against soaring food prices.

The UAE will look to invest in farmland in Turkey as rising prices raise the urgency of food security, says Sultan al Mansouri, the Minister of Economy.

Former Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, is leading a push to get Arabs to invest in Australian farmland as part of a long term food security strategy for oil-rich Gulf States

The UAE and other GCC member countries should draw up a unified food security strategy with the bloc, and not individual countries, investing in farms abroad to minimise risks of political blackmail.

A handful of North African countries, along with Iraq and Sudan, could feed the Gulf.

The large-scale purchasing of agricultural products and assets are the main targets of the UAE delegation visit to the Ukraine.

Gulf Merchant Bank launches aquaculture fund and acquires 400ha land concession.

As Gulf states continue to invest in foreign farmland, what are the long term implications

Several national companies and even the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the capital's sovereign fund, are planning investments in agriculture in countries as diverse as Vietnam, Cambodia, Pakistan, Australia, Romania and the United States.

Abu Dhabi acquired 30,000 ha of Sudanese farmland last June through the ADFD to grow alfalfa, a crop used to feed cattle.