A real financialisation of land, natural resources and the agri-food system is underway throughout South America. In the context of the multiple global crises, the pressure on the control of land and other resources of interest has increased considerably, either for productive use or as financial assets. To this end, the digitisation of land governance and the georeferencing technology that supports it are serving to disguise a massive digital land grab.

Agricultural investors say the COVID-19 crisis has had little impact on their business and investment intentions, with Australian agricultural land, water and business assets as appealing as ever to investors.

The Feronia case, and other development bank investment failures, shows that there is a need to overhaul development finance institutions practices and to consider whether it might be better to just shut them down entirely.

An Associated Press investigation found poor conditions of millions of laborers from some of the poorest corners of Asia across palm oil plantation in Malaysia and Indonesia, many of them enduring various forms of exploitation, with the most serious abuses including child labor, outright slavery and allegations of rape.

Indonesia has started developing a food estate to grow rice, corn and other crops. The project is expected to cover an area of 770,000 hectares (1,903,000 acres), or more than ten times the size of Singapore.

The villagers say they never received compensation for farmland lost to a sugarcane company owned by a senator, another company owned by businessman Heng Huy, and to Chinese company the Union Development Group.

Nyéléni Newsletter's second edition fo 2020 looks at how land-related struggles have evolved over the past decades, starting with demands for agrarian reform to a more comprehensive framing.

Communities of Edo State send letter to President Buhari denouncing land grabbing and other human rights violations committed by SOCFIN and its Nigerian subsidiary Okomu Oil Palm Company PLC.

The Singaporean-owned company has about 7600 hectares of farmland including a network of 25 properties in the Murray Valley and near Bendigo and in the Victorian Wimmera, carrying about 40,000 breeding sows.

Giant South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group is looking to make an exit from the Warragundi aggregation in Australia, just over a year after taking control of the largest acreages in NSW’s Mudgee region.

Egypt has agreed with Sudan to study a plan to grow crops together on Sudanese land within the framework of economic cooperation between the two countries.

This investment marks the US pension’s first investment in farmland, and in its first in Homestead.