A pending agreement for Iran to graze sheep inside Armenia has sparked a furor among Armenian environmentalists and nationalists over whether or not the prospective deal poses a threat to the country’s national security.

Suitable land for palm-oil cultivation is running out in top producers Malaysia and Indonesia, which now account for about 85 percent of the global output. Wilmar is among several companies searching for land in West and Central Africa.

Some African states have been accused of complicity in the problem of land grab by investors. Cecile Leuba of Peuples Solidaire and Action Aid France says this is having a serious effect on the local people who lose their land.

The Chinese government has long encouraged businesses to invest in agriculture abroad, and Xi Jinping's first foreign trip as president in the past week involved visits to three African countries.

We call for a mass mobilisation to stop the landgrab and support local peasants struggles.

On Feb. 14, four days before Armenia's highly contested presidential election, Hasmik Evoyan and others protested the sheep deal in front of Armenia's National Assembly building in Yerevan.

"The UAE is looking not just at land [acquisitions] but developing the whole supply chain," says Nicholas Lodge, managing partner at Clarity, a consultancy that advises on investments in agricultural industries.

Abu Dhabi-based firm Al-Dahra agreed to invest $ 400 million to buy eight Serbian farm companies and develop them to grow and process food and fodder for export, in the biggest investment in Serbian agriculture for decades.

BRICS states, except Russia, are enhancing and facilitating land grabs abroad in a way that is inconsistent with their proclamations of sustainable development, cooperation solidarity, and respect of national sovereignty.

In its 2012 Annual Report, Louis Dreyfus Commodities says it owns and operates a total of more than 180,000 hectares of farming land distributed around the world, and that it is looking into more farming opportunities in the Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Tanzania.

The potential for investment in Eastern European agricultural land is gaining more and more attention. Information is being dug up by individual commercial investment organizations to make investment moves.

Karuturi said it will borrow "hundreds of millions" of dollars from a sovereign wealth fund to invest in farming in East Africa after development banks declined to provide assistance because of “unfair” criticism by advocacy groups