A move by Madagascar's army-backed leader to nix a huge South Korean farming deal has exposed the risks of such ventures in Africa.

Macquarie Agricultural Funds Management has started up the Macquarie Crop Fund to "acquire or lease grain and oilseed properties located in geographically diverse regions of Australia and Brazil".

In a move to attract foreign investment, Cambodia has awarded big concessions to companies, mainly from China, Vietnam and South Korea, to run mines, power plants and farms, leading to a rise in forced evictions by state officials profiting on the sale and lease of farmland for use by foreign and local companies.

This double issue of OECD's magazine includes a 12-page dossier on land grab deals in West Africa

Minister says the contract did not give a deadline for the investor to complete his project, which means the government is powerless to withdraw the land from Saudi Prince Talal.

JICA is building a new development model to encourage increased agricultural production in Africa, both to help prevent another global food crisis and to deter a land grab by foreign enterprises across the continent, according to Senior Vice President Kenzo Oshima.

Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has received approval from Egypt's Ministry of Agriculture to sell 50 Pct of his agricultural firm, which is developing the Toshka agriculture project in southern Egypt, and to invite Asian investors to join the project.

Investors are growing more bullish on U.S. farmland as softness in some sectors spurs increased competition for buying quality acres. Capital flow is increasing from overseas, in particular from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The Chinese company ZTE received an allocation of approximately 10,000 hectares of land from the Ministry of Agriculture. The deal aims at boosting production of wheat and maize, state media reported.

Saudi Arabia wants to secure supplies for sugar, rice, wheat, malt and fodder with farmland investments overseas, its agricultural minister said in remarks published on Tuesday.

Noble Group Ltd., the commodity supplier backed by China Investment Corp., wants to buy and build coal mines, ports and plantations to benefit from rising Asian demand, Chief Executive Officer Ricardo Leiman said.

The Congo ventures are not core businesses to be based in the Congo but instead, extensions of businesses located in South Africa