Vicstock venture pulls back

• West Australian
• 07 May 2015

Vicstock Grain and its Chinese backers (Beidahuang) have dramatically scaled back their cropping operations in the Wheatbelt three years after a $70 million spending spree on farmland.

Ukraine farms are takeover targets for private equity’s Bleyzer

• Bloomberg
• 06 May 2015

SigmaBleyzer's company AgroGeneration manages fields of wheat, sunflowers and other crops in five Ukrainian regions and is looking for deals to expand farm operations in the country

West Papua 'oil palm atlas' portrays industry's explosion in region

• Mongabay
• 06 May 2015

There's a saying in Indonesian palm oil industry: Sumatra is yesterday, Kalimantan is today, and Papua is tomorrow. Tomorrow might well have arrived. A new report sheds light on the industry's rapid expansion in Indonesia's easternmost region and the companies behind the plantation drive.

Hundreds of Cambodian villagers halt clearing of land in Preah Vihear

• RFA
• 05 May 2015

More than 300 villagers formed a human barrier, blocking bulldozers owned by the two foreign companies, Vietnamese developer Thy Nga and Taiwanese firm PNT who are encroaching ancestral farmland and operating outside of the boundaries set by their concessions.

Sugar company pulls out #ThaiCompany

• Thai Visa
• 05 May 2015

Asia’s largest sugar producer, Thailand’s Mitr Phol Sugar Corporation, has withdrawn from its three plantations in Oddar Meanchey province in Cambodia following years of criticism over alleged illegalities and human rights abuses at the concessions.

My Home My Land

• Oakland Institue
• 05 May 2015

My Home, My Land is a graphic representation that dismantles the myths promoted by donor countries, development agencies, and corporations about the positive effects of foreign direct investments through large-scale land acquisitions.

Chinese investor plans to spend $100m on beef

• Australian Financial Review
• 04 May 2015

One of China’s largest beef producers, Honda Agriculture, is looking to buy up to $100 million worth of cattle property in Australia over the next 12 months.

Shared responsibility

• D+C
• 03 May 2015

Because of plantations or infrastructure projects, people are displaced from the land that their livelihood depends on. To improve matters, the UN voluntary guidelines on the tenure of land, forests and water must be implemented.

Emergency request for re-constituting public consultation process about the formulation of the Master Plan of the ProSAVANA Program

• 01 May 2015

English translation of the joint request by 6 Japanese NGOs to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Japan, and the President of JICA

The biofuels boom and bust in Africa: a timely lesson for the New Alliance initiative

• PLAAS
• 30 April 2015

Land-based investments in Africa supported by the G8's New Alliance follow similar patterns to unrealised ambitions of biofuels investments.

West Papua Oil Palm Atlas – The companies behind the plantation explosion.

• awasMIFEE
• 30 April 2015

A comprehensive investigation into the oil palm industry in West Papua, by awasMIFEE and Pusaka and local Papuan organisations Belantara Papua, Bin Madag Hom, Jasoil, SKP KAME and Jerat. Papua, and Sawit Watch.

Unearthing a Libyan land deal

• Reuters
• 30 April 2015

Irrigated farmland near the Niger River should be the breadbasket of Mali. But a lack of infrastructure, political instability, climate change and botched foreign investment deals mean the region isn't living up to its potential.