Egypt may start selling farmland in tenders to foreign and local investors by June as part of a new agro-industrial zones project, the head of the country's Industrial Development Authority said.

The Philippines has offered to become a major source of agricultural products to Saudi Arabia ahead of a planned visit by the kingdom’s agricultural minister Fahd Balghunaim, Arab News reported on Wednesday.

Less than two weeks ago, Daewooinformed the public through the press that it stopped its plans for large-scale plantation in Madagascar. However, it was only a diversion to keep the local press away.

The Japanese government is drawing up plans to finance investments in agricultural production in developing countries, in the latest sign of nervousness about food security among countries that import agricultural commodities.

Emirates Investment Group is in the process of acquiring farmland in Pakistan to export more food to the Gulf region and is seeking international partners, a company executive said on Tuesday.

“African countries have not been in a reasonable bargaining position,” AU Agriculture Commissioner Rhoda Peace Tumusiime told Reuters in an interview at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. “The pace of the trend was very fast and they didn’t envisage that there should be benefits to the community.”

Foreign investors in overseas farmland “should not have a right to export” during a food crisis in the host country, a government-backed think tank is to propose on Thursday, in the first code of conduct to address the so-called land grabbing trend.

Growing food in foreign lands has a long history. But the 21st century version of outsourced agriculture presages something fundamentally new.

On the eastern coast of Kenya, controversy erupts over plans to turn a biodiversity hotspot into farmland for Qatar.

Saudi officials I have spoken to seem to be aware of the minefields their schemes could ignite.

Saudi Arabia's desire to secure its sources of food for its citizens by establishing overseas joint ventures in food production has received a positive response from a Philippine trade delegation.

Japan is considering providing loans from a government-owned bank for companies to purchase and lease farmland abroad, Munemitsu Hirano, counsellor at the international affairs department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said.