Interview with Sudanese government and FAO officials on leasing farmland to foreign investors

This analysis looks at how the oil-rich Muslim economies could leverage their existing relationships with agriculture based Muslim economies (which have a wide productivity gap with the worlds net agriculture exporters) taking them to globally competitive levels; reaping for themselves high investment returns, securing their own food sources, and contributing to alleviation of the food crisis from other Muslim countries.

Vision3, an alliance of three major Gulf financial institutions, has signed a landmark deal with Turkey paving the way for nearly $9 billion investment in Turkey’s agricultural sector.

Myanmar proposed to Bangladesh to take lease of at least 50,000 acres of land in its Rakhine state for contract farming of paddy, onion, maize, soybean, tea, and sugarcane

Yang told the Philippine President that they are eyeing a 10,000-hectare land in Davao del Sur as possible site for their planned laboratory where they will conduct tests on the viability of growing traditional Chinese herbs, the main ingredient of JKG medicines.

The fund, which will invest in commercial agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, has dual-purpose - to ensure returns in the range of 15-20 per cent, while the investment helps to create jobs and give rural Africans the chance to help themselves out of poverty. Currently, cru has significant exposure to commercial agriculture in Malawi with over 2,500 hectares of land under its own control and another 4,000 hectares in outgrower schemes.

Recently, Sudan was reported to have leased more than 800,000 hectares of its most fertile land to the Saudis. Several other Gulf countries, including Egypt, are in the process of closing similar deals. It is expected several hundred thousand hectares more will be leased out by the end of this year. The lease tenure is 99 years. At least two generations of Sudanese will have to live with the decisions made by their leader.

Nowadays, the concern of the Malagasy governement is focused on how to attract foreign private investments. The new Malagasy investment law, Act 2007-036 of January 14th, 2008, has brought a very key change concerning the possibility for foreigners to own their land in Madagascar

With shaky stock markets across the globe, more and more investors are looking to buy tracts of land with and without planning permission in emerging markets and in particular in Bulgaria, where agricultural land prices alone are twice as low as the rest of the Eastern bloc.

Some experts believe that the emphasis should be on overseas agricultural investments as well as a boost in trade relationships, due to the unavoidable handicaps to domestic agriculture.

Talks are on with investors from Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. 25,000 Punjab villages will be affected.

Private equity funds remain optimistic that Brazil’s farm sector offers investment opportunities despite the deteriorating world credit market, executives said on Thursday.