If the host state and foreign investors act in conformity with these suggestions, they will maximise the prospects that any large-scale land transaction benefits all stakeholders and minimise the chances of concluding harmful deals.

"The big fear I have and which many people have is that these foreign investments shall increase the gap between the happy few large-scale producers who will benefit and the vast majority of small-scale producers who will be further marginalized," says Olivier de Schutter

While everyone from the Rothschild’s – via the Agrifirma Brazil fund, run with Jim Slater – through to Nicola Horlick and UBS are snapping up farmland in Brazil, I’m fascinated by another niche: Canada and New Zealand.

This paper takes stock of current understandings of, and responses to, commercial pressures on land by organisations within and beyond ILC’s membership.

India's edible oil industry, which has been trying over the past couple of years to venture into oilseeds cultivation in Paraguay and Uruguay, but could not make much headway due to high cost of finance, is charged up again to take fresh initiatives to realise the dream project.

In the Philippines, who is monitoring & regulating these deals? Are they violating people’s rights enshrined in our laws? Will communities succumb to vague promises of jobs & infrastructures? Will the deals really trigger economic growth?

The Confederation of Indian Industry disagrees with critics of India's foreign landgrabbing for agriculural production

Thai exporters are concerned about the "land-grabbing colonialism" strategy being used by developed nations such as South Korea to reap benefits from agricultural goods grown in a second country and exported to other nations.

Visit to a 2000 hectare farm in Uruguay on July 4, 2009 with Vinod Surana, CEO of Surana and Surana and leader of CII delegation from India visiting Argentina and Uruguay on June 29 - July 3, 2009

Agricultural experts, civil society activists, peasants and politicians condemn the PPP-led coalition government which has given nod to lease out 6m acres of Pakistani land to Gulf-based multinationals.

Questions persist as to whether the Government ought to tighten its control over the ownership of agricultural land, particularly by non-Kenyans.

There may emerge a situation when Ukrainians will be starving in spite of having the most fertile black earth.