Big purchases of African land by richer countries in a drive for food security could fuel unrest if the rights of local farmers are not taken into consideration, a land rights campaigner warned on Wednesday.

A group of five Saudi Arabia business men have planned to invest 1 billion Saudi riyals (some $ 266.6 million) in agricultural projects in Sudan and Ethiopia within the coming few years, Pan Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat reports.

Los gobiernos y corporaciones ricos han desatado la alarma para los pobres a medida que van comprando los derechos a millones de hectáreas de tierra cultivable en los países en desarrollo en un esfuerzo por garantizar su suministro de alimentos a largo plazo.

"We can't eat semiconductors or auto parts." When Richard Shin of Daewoo Logistics told me this during an interview last week, it hit me hard. Shin is the manager of the Korean firm's $6 billion project to carve a 1.3 million hectare farm out of Madagascar, a formal French colony.

A number of videos interviews broadcast by Al-Arabiya are available at Zawya.com, in Arabic

Saudi Arabia's Hail Agricultural Development Co (Hadco) said on Monday it would look at investing in Turkey and Kazakhstan after moving into Sudan under a government plan to ensure steady food imports.

With land prices falling, now is a good time for the UAE to acquire farmland in other countries, in order to strengthen food security, a senior official says.

Saudi private sector company Hail Agricultural Development Co (Hadco) has picked Sudan for its first investment in farming abroad under a Saudi government scheme to ensure steady food imports, it said.

« Nous sommes toujours désireux d’investir là-bas. (…) Nous avons fait tout ce qui était prévu dans les textes, mais le gouvernement de Madagascar n’a pas pu procéder aux actes nécessaires pour nous permettre de continuer. (…) Nous attendons une réponse pour passer à l’étape suivante. »

There is this saying common in most tribal vernaculars and other languages which simply states that where there is smoke there is likely to be fire.

The recent much-publicised plan of South Korean conglomerate Daewoo Logistics to lease a reported 1.9 million hectares of prime land in Madagascar to cultivate maize for export back to South Korea has fallen through.

A number of Kuwaiti businesses have expressed an interest in investing in agriculture in Laos, according to a Lao company owner.

The International Financial Corp, the World Bank’s private-sector lender, said on Thursday it will invest $75 million in a new agribusiness fund to increase global food supplies. IFC said it had joined forces with Altima Partners, which manages the $625 million Altima One World Agricultural Fund, to create a fund to invest in farming operations and agricultural land in emerging market countries.

FAO believes that the time has come to give deep thought to creating the conditions to ensure the success of international ‘joint-ventures’ for food production

A South Korean company said Thursday it may delay a controversial project to develop a huge area of Madagascar for farmland due to political unrest in the Indian Ocean nation."We may have to delay our investment in Madagascar mainly due to political instability there," Shin Dong-Hyun, managing director of the financing and strategic planning department of Daewoo Logistics, told AFP.