Thailand

The UAE and its food-importing neighbours are “particularly vulnerable” to spiralling costs and should make significant investments in “contract farming” in Africa and Asia, says the UN’s Gulf food chief, Dr Kayan Jaff.

The Saudi government announced that it would co-ordinate with local private-sector companies and invest in strategic agricultural interests in key producer countries such as Brazil, Ukraine, Thailand and India, guaranteeing for itself supplies of cereals, meat and vegetables. It is already in advanced negotiations with Thai investors and a deal on rice farms in Thailand is likely before the end of the year.

As food crisis worsens, some nations are desperate for arable land

Bahrain wants to invest in rice farmland in the Philippines, the world's top importer of the grain, in a move to boost food security as global food supplies become increasingly expensive, traders said on Wednesday.

Bahrain is inviting private companies to set up joint ventures to invest in farmland in Thailand.

To break the runaway inflation that is fuelled by high food costs, Gulf rulers have a new strategy: they are buying unused agricultural land in poor countries like Pakistan, Thailand and Sudan, and becoming large-scale farmers.

Bahrain Minister of Industry and Commerce Dr. Hassan bin Abdullah Fakhro pointed out today that an agreement was reached with officials in the Philippines to allocate large plots of land to grow Basmati rice in a bid to secure the Kingdom's needs for such a product at reasonable prices

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Somsak Prissananantakul is set to toughen the enforcement of land ownership laws to keep rice farming areas out of foreign investors' reach.

The Thai Farmers Association called on concerned agencies yesterday to look into land occupation by foreign businessmen, which has made many of the country's rice farmers landless.

Farmers and activists have opposed a plan for a business consortium from Saudi Arabia to invest in rice farming in Thailand. The scheme is said to be the creation of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Farmers fear they could lose their livelihood and rice farming could be held hostage by foreign investors.

“Buying farms is not a bad thing,” Panos Konandreas, acting director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Geneva, said in a telephone interview. “If you are like Saudi Arabia and have all the resources in the world, you can help farms optimize their strategies and there will be more production.”

Investors in Saudi Arabia, one of the world's top rice buyers, are looking for joint ventures with Thai partners to invest in rice farming in Thailand and Africa.