Rattled by rapidly rising global grain prices, China is looking at strategies to ensure long-term food security for its 1.3 billion people such as procuring farmland overseas and opposing the formation of any international grain price-fixing monopolies.

China's private firms are pushing to invest in farms overseas, but policy debates over whether this is in China's strategic interest have so far stopped the trend becoming an explicit government policy, a senior official said on Friday.

Inflation and the spectre of long-term food shortages have prompted the UAE Government to consider a new strategic investment – the purchase of large-scale farms in Pakistan and other countries.

MAP Services Group announced the setup of a Middle East Food Fund in partnership with various Gulf partners to act as a food production basket serving the region. The fund will invest in the agriculture sector in Pakistan, Egypt and Georgia for food and food-related products to be produced for the Gulf region.

As Beijing scrambles to feed its galloping economy, it has already scoured the world for mining and logging concessions. Now it is turning to crops to feed its people and industries. Chinese enterprises are snapping up vast tracts of land abroad and forging contract farming deals.

The worldwide food shortage has spurred enthusiasm among Chinese enterprises to invest in overseas agriculture sectors. South America and Russia are likely to become the new destinations for agricultural investments from China.

The worldwide shortage of food grains coupled with high food prices is driving leading food companies and investors from the UAE to Pakistan in search of lucrative deals in the agriculture sector in of one of the world’s major food exporters.

With their huge populations, China and India exert an unparalleled force on world food markets. They are looking abroad as it becomes more difficult for them to be self-sufficient -- and the increasing demand often has disastrous consequences across the globe.

Hedge funds and investment banks are swapping their Gucci for gumboots as they bet on rising food prices by buying farms.

President Lee Myung-bak said that one possible way to secure grain supplies from overseas would be to sign a long-term land lease. The President specifically pointed to the Russian Far East.

"Only 12 percent of Mozambique's arable land is under cultivation. Mozambique's agriculture minister is actively courting international agricultural investment," reports the US Embassy in Maputo

Soaring agricultural prices, growing demand for biofuels and the growth of the Chinese and Indian economies are leading top global investment banks to buy farmland in a bid to embrace the physical commodities market.