UAE

Vision3, an alliance of three major Gulf financial institutions, has signed a landmark deal with Turkey paving the way for nearly $9 billion investment in Turkey’s agricultural sector.

The fund, which will invest in commercial agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, has dual-purpose - to ensure returns in the range of 15-20 per cent, while the investment helps to create jobs and give rural Africans the chance to help themselves out of poverty. Currently, cru has significant exposure to commercial agriculture in Malawi with over 2,500 hectares of land under its own control and another 4,000 hectares in outgrower schemes.

Some experts believe that the emphasis should be on overseas agricultural investments as well as a boost in trade relationships, due to the unavoidable handicaps to domestic agriculture.

Talks are on with investors from Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. 25,000 Punjab villages will be affected.

Margarito B. Teves, Finance Secretary of the Philippines, spoke to Gulf News about the potential for joint investment initiatives between the UAE and the Philippines. "The UAE can count on the Philippines as a reliable supplier of food products permissible under Sharia."

Soaring food prices, supply fears among import-dependent countries and rising demand for biofuels have driven up investment in agricultural land, notably in Africa.

Sudanese Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will spend three billion Sudanese pounds (1.5 billion USD) up to the end of the year to implement a massive program to develop the agricultural sector.

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.

Once committed largely to perceived safe-haven investments in the United States, Gulf nations are now looking to send their petrodollar surpluses towards a more exotic global destination: Southeast Asian farmland.

"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

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.

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.