Qatar

Interview with Wadid Erian of the Arab Centre for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands.

The Kuwait-based firm aims to build on its base as the leading food company in the Middle East.

Qatar-based Hassad Food has initiated its investment in Australian ­agriculture with the purchase of the prized Kaladbro Estate in far western Victoria.

Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Co. plans to invest in Georgia, including the purchase of farm land, following a fact-finding trip in April.

Citadel's Karim Sadek dismisses talk of land grabbing as an “academic concern”, saying “there should definitely be a priority for the produce to be sold on the local market, if there is a paying market for it”.

The lack of systematic collection of data and categorising private and official investments from the Gulf has made it difficult to reach an accurate estimate of total investments, made so far.

BKK Partners, an Australian financial advisory firm, has a client that wants to buy 100,000 ha of Cambodian farmland. Human rights workers and politicians are concerned.

Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank is tapping Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund as well as other government and private entities as the bank seeks to double financing for agriculture sector in developing countries.

A delegation of top Kenana Sugar officials is in Doha to hold talks with Qatar’s Hassad group to create one of the world’s biggest food producing companies with a view to ensuring food security in the Arab world.

A top-level Qatar National Food Security Programme (QNFSP) delegation, led by QNFSP chairman Fahd al Attiyah, will visit agricultural research institutes and meet senior US Government officials, including from the White House, the State Department, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy during its week-long US programme.

Both private and public sector investors from countries such as Qatar, Libya, Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the Arab world as well as China and Korea elsewhere now hold long term rights to a total of two million feddans of arable land in Sudan, according to figures from the country’s agriculture ministry.

“We are in big trouble with the government of Madagascar,” said Shin Dong-hyun, the general manager of planning and finance at Daewoo Logistics Corporation.