BrazilAgro owns close to 200,000 hectares of farmland in Brazil, said Elsztain. Cresud Sacifya, the biggest farmland owner in Argentina, holds 22.89 percent of BrasilAgro and operates the company.

A private sector fund worth $350 million plans to launch by the end of the year in the Gulf, with the aim of acquiring farmland in Romania, Moldova and Tanzania

Many small Ethopian farmers do not share their leaders' enthusiasm for leasing off farmland to foreign investors

The planned expansion of plantations in the Papuan provinces of Indonesia should be immediately suspended and reviewed amid concerns over massive deforestation and widespread exploitation of local communities, environmentalists warned today.

"Agriculture companies from Germany and the United States have also shown interest in developing a project in Iraq, but nothing is final yet," said Sami R Al Araji, the chairman of Iraq's National Investment Commission

Paul Conway, senior vice-president at Cargill, calls food self-sufficiency "a nonsense" and warns that overseas food production through land grabs will likely run into export bans by host countries

The Ethiopian government says concerns about foreign investors exporting food are outweighed by the plantations’ capacity to bring the country foreign exchange and technology, as well as creating employment.

Buenos Aires-based Cresud plans to acquire more land to add to the 484,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) it owns and the 90,410 hectares it leases in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia

ENI plans to develop 70,000 ha of palm oil in Congo

Earlier this year, delegates to the annual session of China’s parliament debated a proposal to seek employment for up to 100 million Chinese in various African countries to solve two of China’s greatest challenges—food security and unemployment.

De Jager is worried about Libya’s record in enforcing contracts with foreign companies, and the lack of social support networks. “There’s a lot of money to be made for someone with balls,” he says.