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

Felda Global plans to use the bulk of its proceeds to snap up more plantations in Southeast Asia and Africa and boost its refining and market business in its bid to become a peer to Archer-Daniel Midlands and Cargill by 2020.

A ten-acre plantation of oil palm, cola nuts, coffee and cacao has been completely destroyed by employees of Socfin Agricultural Company S.L. in Malen Chiefdom, Pujehun District, Sierra Leone.

India is among the top 10 nations to acquire land in both domestic and transnational deals, according to a report released this month by the Washington-based World Watch Institute

The company’s expansion plans -- 50% of IPO proceeds will be used to develop plantations in vulnerable areas in Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere -- are likely to trigger NGO protests and conflicts with local communities.

At an agriculture investment summit in London on Wednesday, leading U.S. and European pensions funds said few assets remained immune from whipsawing markets, prompting institutions to look at farmland.

Investors interested in buying land in Africa, have denied accusations that they are involved in landgrabs, insisting their practice is the only way to feed growing populations.

Fred Pearce, author of the new book The Land Grabbers: The New Fight over Who Owns the Earth, reports on how food shortages and price spikes are leading speculators and agribusiness interests to buy up vast tracts of land around the globe.

Farmland is "an obvious no-brainer choice for most pension funds," according to Savills director of residential research Yolande Barnes.