With Gulf countries and businesses demonstrating a newfound disposition for direct farm investment to cater for their local agro commodity needs, Sub-Saharan Africa has been identified as a source of growing and/or producing their imported food. Nigeria’s position in the matrix cannot be overemphasized.

Saudi investors launched agricultural projects in Indonesia worth $1.3 billion last year, a top business official said on Monday, as the world's top oil exporter seeks to secure food supplies from abroad.

While other property markets crumbled last year, global farmland values initially kept rising. But recently that resilience has been tested. Andrew Shirley investigates whether agriculture is still a good investment.

Contract farming deal between the Indian corporation Varun Agriculture and 13 association in Sofia, Madagascar (January 2009)

Vietnam Rubber Group, the nation’s largest producer and exporter, plans to plant 200,000 hectares of trees in neighboring Laos and Cambodia, betting on a rebound in global demand in the next decade.

Indonesia will allocate at least 2 million hectares of farm land to joint ventures with Saudi investors to be used mainly for the cultivation of rice, a Saudi newspaper reported on Saturday.

Refuged under a shelter as a downpour drenched the village square of Ambalavy in northwest Madagascar, André Rabenampiana says he knows the wood "varona" but has never heard of the Indian company Varun International.

A move by Madagascar's army-backed leader to nix a huge South Korean farming deal has exposed the risks of such ventures in Africa, where land remains an emotive issue prone to populist or nationalist opposition.

Deposed President Marc Ravalomanana brought the house of Madagascar down upon himself. But he has been replaced by a young untested leader who, although he has some public support, is full of himself and clearly contemptuous of democratic institutions. The result is that investment in Madagascar, and perhaps across the continent, will be hurt, writes Stephen Hayes

Growing interest from Asia and Middle East countries to lease agricultural land in Africa "is not a bad thing" but must be handled properly and in a transparent way, a top World Bank official said on Thursday.

Are there any answers to this looming crisis? Some countries are buying land. There is vague talk about governments introducing “water management reforms”. Even more opaquely, there are calls for “multi-country discussions on trans-boundary issues, international trade and investment flows”.

A conference for fund managers tied to agriculture held annually in Sydney by Austock, an Australian broker, attracted a few dozen contrarian souls three years ago. This year’s event, which began on March 16th, had to be restricted to several hundred ticket-holders, with many others turned away.