The new Luxembourg-registered Sustainable Resources Fund boasts anticipated potential returns of at least 15% per annum on forestry, agriculture, biomass and land.

The European Report on Development 2011/12 covered the nexus between water, energy and land, with several commissioned papers on land grabbing.

As the World Bank held its Annual Conference on Land and Poverty in April, campaigners accused it once again of facilitating and legitimising 'land grabs' that harm local communities.

"Africa will be more food insecure if these investments go to other parts of the world and Africa has to turn to those places to buy food," according to Dr Ousmane Badiane of IFPRI

Many in India's eastern state of West Bengal worry the central government's decision to allow foreign direct investment in retail trade would incur loss of jobs even farmers' land.

With minimal consultation, governments and local authorities are signing away huge tracts of land for lease on the cheap. Now communities are raising their voices in opposition to these projects that bring little local development.

Chongqing Grain Group Co Ltd, one of China's largest State-owned grain companies, is in talks with Molino Canuelas SA, a major agribusiness group in Argentina, about joint investments totaling $10 million in a soybean farm and dairy farms in the South American country.

The US-based Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement say they want senior government officials involved in the deal investigated and prosecuted for accepting a deal that will be detrimental to the welfare of Tanzanians.

While Australians fret about how much farmland is being snapped up by foreign investors, our New Zealand cousins have adopted a no-nonsense policy on rural land sales to off-shore investors.

Public opinion is generally cool on overseas investment, especially large land sales to corporate interests where the owners are unlikely to work in the country themselves.

This paper from TNI examines a range of positive alternative investments which strengthen the right to food, re-valorise agricultural work, and build up ecological capital.

Two book reviews by Robin Palmer