Land is the missing element at next month's big UN sustainable development summit known as Rio+20, where nations of the world will meet June 20-22 with the goal of setting a new course to ensure the survival and flourishing of humanity.

Investigative Journalism and critical analysis into land issues currently affecting rural communities would not only reveal malpractices in land issues but also provide a voice for the voiceless in rural communities.

Dar Al-Maskukat Trading of Riyadh has requested a long-term land lease from the Philippines of up to 200,000 hectares of rain-fed government land and private farms to produce rice for the Saudi market.

La Via Campesina urgently requests all governments to condemn the practise of land grabbing that is currently displacing millions of peasants and small-scale producers around the world.

Their land and means of livelihood were taken away from them, their culture trampled upon, all in the name of public-private partnerships and foreign corporate interests.

Ethiopia has made more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of “fertile and unutilized” land available for agriculture companies that meet government requirements, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said.

African governments are bringing agriculture schemes to international investors in the hope of matching investors to fertile soils

Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Agriculture wants to hand over the file of foreign agricultural investments to the Saudi Company for Agriculture Investment and Animal Production.

Uganda has threatened to kick out Oxfam after the British charity accused the government of complicity in violent land grabs for commercial gains, according to the interior ministry.

Indian-listed Karuturi Global, which has leased land in Ethiopia for commercial farming, plans to export cereals, sugar and edible oil to South Sudan and Kenya upon completing cultivation in 2014.

Arab states should buy land in Kurdistan and Kazakhstan to produce staple foods to secure future food resources says a senior Arab League official.

Warren Buffett said yesterday that over the next 100 years, farmland will beat gold, which surged to a record in 2011 after increasing more than sixfold in the past decade.