Les investisseurs internationaux jettent leur dévolu sur les terres agricoles – les meilleures et les mieux irriguées. Elles constituent pourtant le moyen de subsistances des populations locales. Mais les gouvernements font peu de cas de celles-ci.

Since details emerged of Saudi Arabia’s plans to ensure supplies of wheat, rice, corn, soya beans and alfalfa through overseas agricultural investments, officials have insisted that they intended the programme to be private-sector led.

Alarmed by exporters’ trade restrictions, food importing countries have realised that their dependence on the agricultural market makes them vulnerable not only to a surge in prices but, more crucially, to an interruption in supplies.

African countries are giving away vast tracts of farmland to other countries and investors almost for free, according to a report published by IIED, IFAD and FAO

The Sudanese capital state of Khartoum has $45 billion worth of agricultural projects that are available for investors, Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on Sunday, quoting a senior official. One of the projects is worth $500 million and consists of tendering 2,100 sq km of farmland west of Omdurman.

A Norwegian company, ScanFuel Ltd., says its Ghanaian unit has contracted about 400,000 hectares of land, with up to 60 percent reserved for biofuel production, “not less” than 30 percent for food production and the remainder for biodiversity buffer zones.

Saudi agricultural company Tabuk Agricultural Development Co has started preparations to invest in food production abroad, driving up its stock.

For a growing number of South African farmers, the Republic of Congo is the Promised Land. They’re scrambling to get on board an ambitious venture to reclaim farmland in Congo’s interior and help relieve that country of a reliance on food imports. Already some 70 farmers have booked a Congo tour and more than 3,000 have expressed interest, said Agri-SA, the South African farming group organizing the venture.

Rich food importers are acquiring vast tracts of poor countries' farmland. Is this beneficial foreign investment or neocolonialism?

Russia, its appetite for cheap poultry meat growing, is spending billions of dollars developing its poultry farms to slash its dependence on imports and squeeze U.S. suppliers from their biggest export market.

A 23-member delegation composed of government and private sector representatives from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) headed by its Minister of Agriculture was recently on a mission here to explore investment opportunities in agriculture.

CNN's John Defterios takes a look at how Middle Eastern countries are scouring the globe for farmland.