Croatia could experience severe and aggressive land-grabbing attempts by foreign entities at the current stage, particularly when it comes to fertile farmland in the east of the country.
Croatia will soon submit a request to the European Commission to extend a seven-year moratorium on the sale of agricultural land to foreigners.
Prime Minister Tihomir Oreškovic has announced that an investor from the Middle East is interested in a 10,000 hectare plot of agricultural land in Slavonia.
Croatia has retained restrictions on the purchase of farmland, so that foreigners will not be able to buy agricultural land in Croatia for seven years after the country's entry into the EU, with a possibility of extending this time frame for another three years.
Wisconsin state legislators have blocked an effort by Gov. Scott Walker to lift the state's long-time limits on foreign ownership of farmland.
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.
These arrangements are reminiscent of “banana republics” when many African countries served as plantations for European countries -- but even those did not come with such explicit restrictions and rigidities.
Between 2007 and mid-2008, Gulf states and their government-backed businesses spent US$15 billion (Dh55bn) in sub-Saharan Africa alone, much of it in the drive for food security
