Saudi Arabia

The Philippines has signed a $300-million investment agreement with Bahrain to establish agro-fishery businesses in the country.

A consortium of Saudi agricultural companies is looking to invest 150 million riyals ($40 million) into food production in Africa, the Agriculture Ministry said on Sunday.

Saudi investors launched agricultural projects in Indonesia worth $1.3 billion last year, a top business official said on Monday, as the world's top oil exporter seeks to secure food supplies from abroad.

Indonesia will allocate at least 2 million hectares of farm land to joint ventures with Saudi investors to be used mainly for the cultivation of rice, a Saudi newspaper reported on Saturday.

Are there any answers to this looming crisis? Some countries are buying land. There is vague talk about governments introducing “water management reforms”. Even more opaquely, there are calls for “multi-country discussions on trans-boundary issues, international trade and investment flows”.

The truth is that if exploitation of a developing country’s natural resources by the West is colonialism, so it is when rich countries of the South do the same.

“The food crisis in the spring of 2008 was a warning sign,” according to al-Obeid. Saudi Arabia is a net importer of agricultural products, especially rice, corn and soya. This fact is pushing the state to invest overseas. We’ve sent government and private-sector delegations to Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt, Sudan, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Uzbekistan. These delegations have been very warmly received.”

Two listed Saudi companies plan to invest in either farming or agri-business abroad under a state-sponsored plan to ensure steady food supplies.

Saudi Arabia will invest in agro-industy of Kazakhstan, reported Interfaz-Kazakhstan with reference to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Growing crops for strangers, of course, is nothing new. The long, grim march of colonialism was driven by Europe’s penchant for sugar, tea, tobacco and other crops that don’t flourish in northern climes. But as climate change and growing populations put ever more pressure on the earth, state-backed searches for land and food contracts as part of a national food-security strategy strike many as fundamentally new.

Qatar's sovereign wealth fund will turn its focus to commodities - particularly food and energy - in the second half of 2009, a senior official said yesterday.

"Don’t tell me the Saudis grow food in Ethiopia to feed Ethiopians. Here is the conflict. Food shortage and famine is still rampant in today’s Ethiopia."