"Investors are targeting countries with weak laws, buying arable land on the cheap, and failing to deliver on promises of jobs and investments," says a leaked draft of the World Bank report

Australia's opposition leader Tony Abbott said his Liberal-National coalition of center-right parties could revise the country's foreign investment laws if it wins power in the Aug. 21 general election.

BlackRock agriculture fund manager says they are investing in companies that own land and grow crops.

US agribusiness group Bunge Ltd is actively scouting out for palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia to cater to rising demand from Asian economies

The way to make it possible for third parties to benefit materially in exchange for a signature is to eliminate the profit motive.

Citadel Capital Corp., an Egyptian private-equity firm with $8.3 billion in investments, said one of its companies received a $4.9 million loan from Bank of Khartoum for the plantation of land in Sudan.

Wafra, Citadel Capital’s agriculture platform in Sudan, said its portfolio firm has obtained a $4.9 million loan from Bank of Khartoum to support the farming of its first 2,076 acres of sorghum.

LABOR has demanded the Coalition back foreign investment in the farm sector after it said he would be prepared to limit foreign purchases.

Exports would target markets in the EU, where demand is rising, Sudan's nine neighbours as well as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Arab world.

The report is due for publication next month, but leaks are already getting out, and causing a stir among Brussels’ huge development activist community.

Public opinion is clearly against the Crafar farms sale on the basis that NZ is "selling the farm", while selling a controlling stake in a processing plant is seen as another issue altogether. There is a strong argument for conditionality either way, writes Fran O'Sullivan.

The Federal Opposition is supporting a call for a national register of foreign purchases of land and water in rural Australia.