UAE

The UAE Government is holding talks with Thailand about plans to develop huge livestock farms in the Southeast Asian country.

These arrangements are reminiscent of “banana republics” when many African countries served as plantations for European countries -- but even those did not come with such explicit restrictions and rigidities.

Pakistan dramatically increased the amount of farmland open to foreign investors to six million acres, but will require outsiders to share half of their crop with local growers, Pakistan’s investment minister told Reuters.

Pakistan hopes to attract more than $10 billion of investment from oil-rich Arab Gulf countries this year to help develop the country's infrastructure, a senior government official said Saturday.

Investors from the UAE are considering a number of investments in Pakistan, despite escalating violence in the north-west of the country.

THESE days, as we follow the struggle against the Taliban in the northwest, we can be forgiven for missing other important news. For instance, I had filed away a report on plans to lease large chunks of agricultural land in Punjab and Sindh to overseas investors in the back of my mind, planning to write about it later. When I ran a Google search on the subject, however, I realised the enormity of the scam.When I ran a Google search

Russian grain processing firm PAVA plans a farmland investment road show across the Gulf region over the next two months and is open to selling shares to Middle East investors as it aims to triple the land under its control.

Our government is planning to offer Arab investors legislative cover to protect them from changes in the government, but hardly any attention has yet been given to the need for protecting poor labourers who will be working for Arab corporate agriculture companies

In its bid to experiment with new ideas, the Pakistani government has decided to play host to overseas investors keen on acquiring farmlands to capitalise on food insecurities post-2007-08 crisis.

Emirates Investment Group is in the process of acquiring farmland in Pakistan to export more food to the Gulf region and is seeking international partners, a company executive said on Tuesday.

“African countries have not been in a reasonable bargaining position,” AU Agriculture Commissioner Rhoda Peace Tumusiime told Reuters in an interview at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. “The pace of the trend was very fast and they didn’t envisage that there should be benefits to the community.”

Saudi officials I have spoken to seem to be aware of the minefields their schemes could ignite.