Kuwait granted Cambodia a 546-million-dollar agricultural loan in August in return for crop production.

The government has defended its decision, saying that under the agreement, Qatar will help Kenya develop an equivalent number of hectares for its own food security.

As Kenya prepares to declare a national emergency in response to food shortages, the government's agricultural policies have come under growing scrutiny. A proposed deal to lease land to the government of Qatar for agricultural use has received particular attention.

Sri Lanka has offered farm land to Qatar to grow food on the fertile island.

"Since 2005, the Burmese Government has encouraged investors from China, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Kuwait to invest in contract farms," reports the US mission in Rangoon

Some Laotian farmers are losing their ancestral lands or being forced to become wage workers on what were once their fields

The South Koreans have indicated that they want to ship their output back home for their own domestic market, which is overdependent on imports. Officials in Antananarivo insist they will be able to keep some of the new supplies within the country. “We’re very excited because we’re frightened by this food crisis,” said Eric Beantanana, a spokesman at the Madagascar Economic Development Board.

Most of the produce from the proposed project, mainly vegetables and fruits, would be exported to the Gulf. Questions have been raised on why the Government has chosen to lease the land instead of engaging local farmers to boost food security in the country.

Vision 3, an alliance formed by Gulf Finance House, Ithmaar Bank and Abu Dhabi Investment House, announced the make up of its board at its inaugural meeting yesterday.

A US businessman backed by former CIA and state department officials says he has secured a vast tract of fertile land in south Sudan from the family of a notorious warlord.

Unity state, where Philippe Heilberg, a US businessman, says he has secured a huge tract of arable land, is inaccessible even by south Sudan’s standards. Apart from AK-47 assault rifles, it is deprived of most of the trappings of the modern world.

"We are seeing a land grab bigger than anywhere else in the world, and it has attracted a mighty cast of characters," says Kingsmill Bond, chief strategist at Troika Dialog, a Moscow brokerage firm.