Today's emerging new farm owners are private equity fund managers, specialised farmland fund operators, hedge funds, pension funds, big banks and the like.
The recent typhoons in the Philippines highlighted land and crop use conversion as a factor in worsening the effects of disasters on food production and the need to ensure adequate land for food production. However amid all these, government has reserved more agricultural land for export crops and use of foreign agro-corporations.
"With hungry countries desperately in need of food, Ukraine land certainly provides the vehicle for a strategic investment in soft commodities." Commercial pitch for foreign investment in Ukranian farmland.
Sudan's Kenana sugar company -- part-owned by the governments of Sudan and Saudi Arabia and the Kuwait Investment Authority, among others -- will manage more than 300,000 acres of farm land in a long-term project that aims to make Africa's largest country the bread basket of the Middle East within 10 years, officials said on Sunday.
The Government has ordered 2000 squatters out of land meant for large-scale paddy farming in Kilombero district, Morogoro region.
The Mauritius government is setting up a regional development agency to promote land cultivation in Mozambique.
Head of global investment strategy at HSBC Private Bank says: 'I wouldn’t use the expression land grab. But I would say this is very much something you would invest in on a minimum 10-year horizon.'
The UAE is interested in investing in agriculture sector as one of the strongest sectors in Colombia due to the availability of fertile land and natural irrigation systems.
The plan to create a land bank brings back memories of the fury that greeted proposals by the Qatar government to buy 40,000 hectares in Tana River for agricultural purposes in exchange for $3.5 billion for the Kenya government to build a second deep-water port in Lamu.
Corporate farming will raise food production in Pakistan and local people would get required food items. It will export only extra food stocks to foreign countries, disclosed advisor to Chief Minister, Sindh, Sharmila Faruqui.
Participants of the ‘Jang Economic Session’ have opposed the policy to transfer land either on lease or on permanent basis to foreigners on the pretext of corporate farming.
Roots for Equity Director Dr Azra Sayeed demanded that the Pakistani government stop giving agricultural land on lease to foreign food companies, and rather that these lands should be given to local growers to overcome food crisis in the country.
