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.

La Libye et l'Ukraine ont signé un mémorandum sur l’exécution d'un projet de culture de 100 mille ha pour la production de céréales en Ukraine. Ce projet sera exécuté par le Portefeuille Libye-Afrique d’investissement et la société ukrainienne “Union Doytas”.

"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.

Contrat portant sur la mise en disposition de 10 000 ha de terres dans le sud de Sénégal à une firme norvégienne pour le plantation de jatropha et d'autres plantes oleagineuses.

La firma de IRSA ampliará su capital para llegar a Uruguay, Paraguay y Bolivia

Japan has steadily prepared for food security by buying 12 million hectares of croplands around the world, from Southeast Asia and China to South America. By comparison, the amount of Korea’s overseas croplands is negligible.

Al Qudra cible 14.000 hectares dans l'huile d'olive et a participé aux appels d'offres lancés par les pouvoirs publics marocains relatifs aux terrains des Sodea-Sogeta. D'autres terrains sont en cours d'analyse pour démarrer les travaux de plantation, a déclaré le management.

Liu Jianjun, a former Chinese government official who runs the Baoding-Africa business council, has contracts to farm 10,000 acres in Uganda, to build a cornflour processing factory in Kenya and for a farm project in the Ivory Coast.

The Moroccan government has pursued a strategy of leasing state-farms previously under the management of Société de Développement Agricole (SODEA). A large number of bids were made by agricultural businesses from France, Egypt, Spain and the United Arab Emirates.