UAE

What started as a government drive to secure cheap food resource has now become a viable business model and many Gulf companies are venturing into agricultural investments to diversify their portfolios.

The problem is that we will lose control. Of course, some regulatory framework will be put in place, but it will also include ceding of control over our land resource to foreigners for a yet-to-be-specified time period.

Agricultural experts have called for a halt to moves by Gulf investors to snap up foreign land, amid claims that poor nations are losing much-needed farmland in a calculated land grab.

Ministro das Relações Exteriores das Ilhas Maurício diz que seu governo assegurou uma vasta área de terra em Moçambique para produzir arroz para seu país.

Pakistan's Ministry of Investment has decided to offer more than 7 million acres of farmland for long-term investment to the Emirates Investment Group and others. China and Saudi Arabia are also interested.

In April, concerns over farmers’ rights led the government of Pakistan’s Balochistan province to block direct deals between United Arab Emirates-based private investors and farmers.

Instead of offering incentives on a similar scale to local farmers, Islamabad is offering legal and tax concessions, with legislative cover, to foreign investors in the form of specialised agricultural and livestock 'free zones' and may also introduce legislation to exempt such investors from government-imposed tax bans. The most worrisome aspect of such wheeling-dealing is the government's decision to develop a new security force of 100,000 men spread across the four provinces to ensure stability of the Arab investments.

A private agricultural investment firm in Abu Dhabi plans a Dh925 million (US$251.8m) farmland deal in Egypt to grow wheat for the African nation’s domestic market.

Gulf states buying farmland in developing nations for food security face the risk of damaging their reputation as international investors as the deals are seen as land grabs, a Rothschild executive said yesterday.

Janan, a UAE agricultural investment firm, will expand its farmland portfolio in a deal with Egyptian agricultural authorities next week.

A United Arab Emirates company will sign a deal with Egypt to cultivate 100,000 feddans, about 42,000 hectares, of land with wheat, corn and feed, the official news agency Mena reported on Tuesday.

“It is the height of stupidity for our country to bargain our lands for the sake of other nation’s food security, while being dependent on importation for our very own food security needs,” says Rafael Mariano