Presentation to the CTA Rural Development Briefing in Central Africa

Is big-business investment in global farmlands the way to build a sustainable, food-secure future? Or is it evidence of a new speculative bubble?

Singapore is eyeing a gigantic farming project in northeast China that could help the small, densely populated city-state diversify its food supplies, while offering export opportunities for its expertise in food safety and investment opportunities for its businesses.

Quietly, these modern-day land marauders are coming to Canada—undermining family farms, compromising local food sovereignty, and harming the environment.

New Zealand tightened rules for major international purchases of farmland and will now require buyers to show how an acquisition benefits the nation’s economy.

Major Japanese trading firms are cautious about Japan buying agricultural land overseas, growing food there and then importing it. One reason, it seems, is their past failures in the agriculture business.

New Zealand's government announced on Monday it will place new controls on overseas investors buying large land holdings.

The fact is, Madagascar agriculture must rely on foreign capital, despite the risk of problems from farmland deals, according to Masanobu Furuya of the Asahi Shimbum

Some projects aimed at increasing food production in Asia have been dropped or delayed amid the financial crisis, notes a new report by IRRI and the Asia Society.

Israel has asked Russia's republic of Tatarstan to lease 1.5 million hectares of its land, said a visiting Israeli businessman on Friday.

AGRA paper on land grabbing in Indonesia, during the period 2004-2010, for food and agrofuels production (in Bahasa Indonesia only).

Over the past year, I have been collecting material on biofuels, land rights in Africa, and global land grabbing. Reading through this material worries me greatly, for it carries very strong echoes of Cecil Rhodes and his merry men.