According to Steve Yuzpe, the CFO of Sprott Resource, ongoing population growth, dwindling arable land, water issues, even the falling yield productivity delivered by genetically modified seeds will be the big drivers for continued record demand—pushing food prices ever higher.
Global Witness, an environmental pressure group, estimates Pheapimex now controls 7% of Cambodia's land area.
Direct investment in farmland has outperformed stock and bond returns over various timescales with substantially lower volatility than the US equity market, according to Stephen Johnston of Calgary-based Agcapita Partners
The Gulf countries remain 'highly vulnerable' to commodity price volatility on international markets, as the recent surge in sugar prices shows.
Hassad Food, owned by Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, will buck the Gulf Arab trend of buying farmland abroad to secure food supplies and consider taking stakes in agricultural companies instead, its chairman said.
Foras Investment Company conducted a pre-feasibility study on rice plantation in Mauritania in 2008. The aim of the study is to sieze the opportunity of setting up a rice farm on 2000 hectares in Rosso area.
To be brutally honest, mutual interest is the opposite of what investor countries are looking for
Thailand's Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry has not found evidence to confirm claims that foreigners are using Thai nominees to buy farmland in Thailand.
Emami Biotech's project has already begun at Awash Sebat Kilo some 250 km east of the capital Addis Ababa growing Jatropha, sunflower, castor, pulses and various herbs at a cost of $24 million.
Despite the risks and the Madagascan setback, Korea's scramble for agricultural land abroad will continue.
The wheat farms in Sudan & Uganda are not Egypt’s first foray into overseas farming — the government operates a corn farm in Zambia, a rice farm in Niger, a vegetable farm in Tanzania and plans 14 more farms across Africa — but they are significant because they are among the first efforts to address wheat scarcity after the instability of 2008.
It seems that the mere mention of foreigners about to snap up our farmland to grow rice will make our blood of patriotism boil instantly. Yet, the same hostile attitude has never been detected from the Thai public or bureaucracy when big swathes of farmland are bought by Thai businessmen in order to transform them into housing or industrial estates.
