By handing over 80,000 hectares of untilled land to a few dozen South African farmers, authorities in the Republic of Congo are confident they will greatly improve domestic agricultural expertise and reduce the country's chronic dependence on food imports

Foreign speculators are increasing price volatility and supply insecurity in the global food system, according to a series of investigative reports released today by the Oakland Institute.

Hundreds of Lamu farmers are up in arms against chiefs and district officers they claim collude with unscrupulous buyers to sell off their land.

“We have opened a new page with the Egyptian government,” Alwaleed said at a news conference with Egyptian PM Essam Sharaf. “We call on Arab and international investors to return to Egypt as soon as possible.”

"The world is running out of farm land quite rapidly and farm land is going to be a very, very precious commodity in time to come. ... Australians are pretty dozy and comfortable on this issue," says Julian Cribb.

KADCO, part of Prince Alwaleed's Kingdom Holding Co, now owns 10,000 feddans [more than 10,000 ha] in southern Egypt while cultivating another 15,000 feddans that it will get ownership of at a later date.

Land is a powerful commodity that should be used for the betterment of humanity through farming and ecology.

The focus of Aabar on farming investments comes as Gulf nations, including Abu Dhabi, plan billions of dollars of investments in global food supply and infrastructure as they guard against price shocks and supply shortages in core resources.

A new scramble for Africa is under way. As global food prices rise and exporters reduce shipments of commodities, countries that rely on imported grain are panicking. Affluent countries like Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China and India have descended on fertile plains across the African continent, acquiring huge tracts of land to produce wheat, rice and corn for consumption back home.

On 10 June 2011, the board of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation will likely approve a loan that will enable a company controlled by France's Louis Dreyfus Group to significantly expand its farmland holdings in the Southern Cone.

It is only after land issues have been resolved at community level that the role and significance of community-investor partnership which does not require transfer of land rights is possible, says the East African Farmers Federation

The Permanent Forum for Life Dignity / Food Sovereignty Group, and the Grupo de Reflexión Rural, along with unions, student and teachers associations and many social organizations and political forces, convoke national and international journalists, social organizations, friends, colleagues and the general public to a Press Conference on June 10 2011 in Viedma, Rio Negro Province, Argentina.