The agribusiness managed investment scheme sector is not expected to escape the economic downturn that has hit the financial services industry.

People planning to spend their dream holiday lounging on the idyllic palm-lined beaches of the Seychelles might have to look elsewhere after the government decided to make food security a priority over the lucrative tourist sector.

Increasingly, the land deals are coming under the scrutiny of the UN and watchdog groups such as Grain, the International Land Coalition and the IFPRI. That's because it is not obvious that they are win-win situations.

The UN’s food security expert, Olivier de Schutter, has called for a “code of conduct” to regulate the purchase of swathes of farmland across Africa, Asia and Latin America by Gulf states and private companies pursuing agribusiness.

THE overthrow of Madagascar’s president in mid-March was partly caused by water problems — in South Korea.

A group of private Saudi investors plans to invest 375 million riyals to plant wheat, barley and rice in Ethiopia

All hedge funds that trade in food commodities should be required to register, the UN’s expert on the right to food Olivier De Schutter told the Press on Monday. Index derivatives should be prohibited and only “useful trading… hedging not speculation” should be allowed, in order to protect the poor and hungry from the market.

The world faces a permanent food crisis and global instability unless countries act now to feed a surging population by doubling agricultural output, a report drafted for ministers of the Group of Eight nations has warned.

Congo-Brazzaville offers free irrigation land to South African farmers exclusively for 99 years. Six government farms of 135 000ha in the Niarri Valley and another 10?million hectares have also been made available.

African states have actively encouraged Gulf investors into areas like agriculture, seeing them as a useful counterweight to China’s influence.

The deal would be the biggest lease of land in the country, which faces food shortages following severe flooding and drought during last year’s growing season.

South Korea, Asia’s second-biggest grain importer, will lend money and give technology to companies to develop farms overseas to ensure the nation’s food security after prices surged last year.