Cambodia

Human rights workers said risks to the rural poor over such deals are significant because they are regularly evicted to make way for foreign investors.

Khon Kaen Sugar Industry Plc aims to invest about 15 billion baht over the next five years to double its sugarcane output in Thailand and continuously expand its presence in Cambodia and Laos.

Peter Costello, the former treasurer of Australia, revealed Wednesday he was working with an investment fund that planned to inject US$600 million into Cambodia’s agricultural sector. The projects will cover a vast area, about 100,000 hectares.

Accaparement des terres - cas du Cambodge - par AGTER

That Korea is no longer "importing" this food that is being grown overseas implies that this land is effectively Korean. This amounts to agricultural imperialism.

"Al Shariqi said that while the government does not have foreign agricultural investments, some UAE sheikhs personally own land in Pakistan, Egypt, Australia and New Zealand," reports the US mission in Abu Dhabi

Local provincial governments are working hard to develop farmland in other countries -- Russia, Cambodia, Mongolia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Paraguay, Uruguay -- because it’s cheaper than relying on imports

UAE foreign investment in food production have so far focused on leasing Pakistan and Sudan’s agricultural land, with new prospects in Cambodian rice, Canadian wheat and Australian beef. Alongside the strategic deals at the national level, private investment has followed which should open new channels of trade, for example, Al Qudra Holding has plans to grow grain and vegetables in Vietnam and Croatia as well as Pakistan.

Cambodia will be the fourth country after Sudan, Egypt and Pakistan to receive UAE investments intended to achieve a food security plan drawn up by the government. Large-scale planting on Cambodian land acquired through purchase or 99-year lease may be launched there next year.

Cambodia's agriculture minister welcomed the UAE plans of the land reclamation in Cambodia, indicating Cambodia will be a partner to the UAE in regard to the agriculture.

"Our proposition to the governments is that we can help them develop the infrastructure and develop the farmland and we will then take a share of the produce," says KCIC

A group of 300 Cambodian people affected by land grabs and evictions - and representing thousands more - gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday to tell the government of their concerns, and to call with a single voice on the government and donor nations to act to protect their land.