What is striking is how brazen and unapologetic the New Alliance is in its quest to open up African farmland to an unprecedented wave of industrial-scale investment.

While NGO pressure has had some impact on speculative investments in agricultural commodities, financial institutions still seem to be very attached to their farmland investments.

The Land Matrix partnership today launches its thoroughly updated dataset which allows tracking of large scale land acquisitions, from negotiation to implementation.

Mozambique’s President Armando Guebuza has rebuffed allegations that land-grabbing has taken place along the Nacala Corridor under the Japanese and Brazilian-supported ProSavana agriculture project in the north of the country.

Decades-old laws barring foreign ownership of farmland in Iowa, Missouri and at least three other Midwest states may complicate Chinese company Shuanghui International's $4.7 billion planned purchase of US pork powerhouse Smithfield Foods.

Hassad Food Co., the agricultural investment arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, plans to invest $500 million in India after buying Bush Foods Overseas Ltd.

Farmland has become the darling of alternative investing, sending hedge funds and wealthy investors into bidding wars for plots of land once deemed ordinary. And it is not just big money getting in on the game. From Stockholm to Chicago to Vancouver, ordinary investor money is pouring into fields around the world.

Sinochem and ZTE Energy, an agribusiness arm of the Shenzhen-based telecoms manufacturer, both bid for 150,000 hectares of palm-oil plantations in 2012, but were promptly rejected.

US investors are increasingly looking to purchase farmland with their retirement funds to take advantage of the tax benefits of a Self-Directed IRA LLC

Veteran advocate against land grabbing, Robin Palmer, reflects on the context of his work since 1963 in this keynote presentation at the University of Limerick.

Ethiopia’s effort to resettle local farmers into main villages while also leasing land to foreign corporations or wealthy Ethiopians has put Gambella under scrutiny for charges of violent forced relocations.

On 29th May, farmers in the Polish Region of West Pomerania organised a protest against land grabbing.