Bahrain wants to invest in rice farmland in the Philippines, the world's top importer of the grain, in a move to boost food security as global food supplies become increasingly expensive, traders said on Wednesday.

China’s search for new land has led Beijing to aggressively seek large land leases in Mozambique over the past two years, particularly in its most fertile areas, such as the Zambezi valley in the north and the Limpopo valley in the south.

The Government is considering the purchase of farmland worth US$500 million (Dh1.8 billion) in Pakistan as part of a strategy to lower food import costs.

"If Korea wants to invest in agriculture, Australia is open for business," Australian Ambassador to Seoul Peter Rowe said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.

Agacpita President Steven Johnston explains the philosophy of investing in farmland

Huge investment funds have already poured hundreds of billions of dollars into booming financial markets for commodities like wheat, corn and soybeans. But a few big private investors are starting to make bolder and longer-term bets that the world’s need for food will greatly increase — by buying farmland, fertilizer, grain elevators and shipping equipment.

One would expect China to add food crops, or farm land, into its growing number of arrangements with African nations, which could explain part of China’s support for Robert Mugabe in that potential breadbasket, Zimbabwe (one report states that China has already received rights to farm 250,000 acres, or 1,000 square kilometres, of corn in southern Zimbabwe).

Bahrain is inviting private companies to set up joint ventures to invest in farmland in Thailand.

To break the runaway inflation that is fuelled by high food costs, Gulf rulers have a new strategy: they are buying unused agricultural land in poor countries like Pakistan, Thailand and Sudan, and becoming large-scale farmers.

Bahrain Minister of Industry and Commerce Dr. Hassan bin Abdullah Fakhro pointed out today that an agreement was reached with officials in the Philippines to allocate large plots of land to grow Basmati rice in a bid to secure the Kingdom's needs for such a product at reasonable prices

Gulf oil producers need to set up agricultural projects in fertile Arab countries to achieve self-sufficiency and to bridge a massive farm deficit that exceeded $12 billion (Dh44bn) in 2006, a Gulf group said yesterday.

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Somsak Prissananantakul is set to toughen the enforcement of land ownership laws to keep rice farming areas out of foreign investors' reach.

The Thai Farmers Association called on concerned agencies yesterday to look into land occupation by foreign businessmen, which has made many of the country's rice farmers landless.

In March 2004, an agreement was signed between southwest China's Chongqing Municipal government and the Lao government to cooperatively build a comprehensive agricultural park in Laos for Chinese enterprises to produce grain. Leasing farmland overseas to produce grain has become a new way for China, a country with the world's greatest population but comparatively scarce soil resources, to solve its food supply problem.

Farmers and activists have opposed a plan for a business consortium from Saudi Arabia to invest in rice farming in Thailand. The scheme is said to be the creation of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Farmers fear they could lose their livelihood and rice farming could be held hostage by foreign investors.