China

"Since 2005, the Burmese Government has encouraged investors from China, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Kuwait to invest in contract farms," reports the US mission in Rangoon

Some Laotian farmers are losing their ancestral lands or being forced to become wage workers on what were once their fields

The reported land deal between Kenya and Qatar is not unique. The Philippines Department of Agrarian Reform said in 2007 it was looking at large tracts of land for agribusiness development under a MoU signed with China. The memo calls for the development of land to grow hybrid corn, rice and sorghum.

Walden Bello said that many of the deals were struck in dysfunctional and corruption-ridden nations, and rejected claims the land being signed away is of poor quality, and that the projects will bring jobs and improve infrastructure. “What we’re talking about is private parties using state contracts to enrich themselves,” he said. “It’s an intersection of corrupt governments and land-hungry nations.”

Ouyang Riping, investisseur privé chinois, finance au Sénégal la production de 150 000 tonnes de sésame sur 60 000 ha d'emblavures d'ici 2013, à raison de 30 000 tonnes chaque année, à partir de 2008.

Pour la République populaire, il est un héros du programme Go Abroad. Sa mission, hautement stratégique : investir les terres africaines pour y cultiver la petite graine magique

Le Cambodge a annoncé qu’il devrait avoir signé d’ici à mi- 2009 et que les accords concerneraient 2,5 millions d’hectares (l’équivalent de la Bretagne). Notons que le pays continue de recevoir une aide d’urgence du Programme alimentaire mondial, ce qui permet de douter de sa capacité à nourrir à la fois sa population et celle du Golfe…

Land acquisitions abroad are the only viable response, Mohammed Raouf, program manager of environment research at the Gulf Research Center, and others say.

Recent unconfirmed media reports suggest that these countries are seeking as much as 20 million acres on which to grow crops that can be shipped back home for domestic consumption.

“Now we are facing the food crisis. Madagascar can have a lot to offer on this: we have land, we are using less than 10% of arable land in Madagascar. The big foreign investors can come in, work together with us. They will get good return on investment and we will get food for the population."

Just how much security the new land investments may provide countries and corporations remains uncertain, experts say. Future governments in countries now renting or selling land may well fail to abide by deals their predecessors cut, particularly if they face food or land shortages at home.

The Ethiopian government’s ambitious target of harvesting 28 million tonnes of cereals in the first three quarters of the 2007/2008 budget year has failed. Authorities seem determined to change this situation by leasing huge chunks of land to other sovereign states for mechanised farming.