Essentially, the Middle East is left with two choices. “The region has to import. The question is, invest abroad or rely on the free market?” said Dr Eckart Woertz, program manager in economics at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

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.

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.

The Saudi Binladin empire has frozen its plan to invest $4.3 billion in developing rice crops in Merauke in Papua Province and a separate project in Southeast Sulawesi Province.

Saudi-based investment firm Binladin Group is mulling at investing on agriculture projects here worth an estimated US$4.3 billion, which will be spent within the course of 15 years, says an official.

Rich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies.

The Saudi Arabia-based Binladin Group is expected to wrap up a feasibility study by the end of this year on investment in a massive food business program that will be located primarily in the eastern part of Indonesia, a senior official says.

Gulf nations now are quietly scouring the globe for rich farmland to rent or buy outright.

West Java governor Ahmad Heryawan said his province will become one of the many regions targeted by the Binladin Group for investment in food production.

A foodstuff consortium from Middle-East countries planning to investment some Rp14 trillion through Bin Laden Group in South-East Sulawesi province, a senior adviser said here on Monday.

A foodstuff consortium from Middle-East countries planning to investment some Rp14 trillion through Bin Laden Group in South-East Sulawesi province, a senior adviser said here on Monday.

The company will conduct a feasibility study of the proposed land area, in the Merauke district of Indonesia’s Papua province, before making their final decision. “We have been looking at other locations that might be suitable but Indonesia is first on our list,” a spokesperson said.