"On today's Human Rights Day, we demand that States fulfill their obligation to respect and protect the right to food of their citizens and abroad by preventing large scale land grabbing" says Sofia Monsalve of FIAN International.

Ethiopia's potential can be maximized only if we Ethiopians are the producers and sellers of our own agricultural products. What Meles Zenawi is doing now is putting this upside down. He made our potential buyers the sellers of our commodity.

Au Mali, le gouvernement a approuvé des baux à long terme permettant à des investisseurs extérieurs de mettre en valeur plus de 160 000 hectares de terre, mais des agriculteurs locaux disent avoir peur d’être chassés.

In Mali the government has approved long-term leases for outside investors to develop more than 160,000 hectares of land. Local farmers say they fear being pushed out.

Sources close to Al-Amoudi said that the king has shown an interest in seeing other Saudi companies involved in rice farming after seeing the samples presented by Al-Amoudi

"Personnellement je ne vois pas ce que les petits producteurs peuvent gagner avec des investissements privés étrangers de masse." Un entretien avec Moussa Djiré.

Area nearly the size of France purchased, leased for food production around the world Africa, South America, parts of Europe targeted by cash-rich, food-poor nations

Les organisations paysannes maliennes et sénégalaises rendraient un fier service aux autres paysans africains s’ils pouvaient obtenir les termes des contrats et les publier.

UAE foreign investment in food production have so far focused on leasing Pakistan and Sudan’s agricultural land, with new prospects in Cambodian rice, Canadian wheat and Australian beef. Alongside the strategic deals at the national level, private investment has followed which should open new channels of trade, for example, Al Qudra Holding has plans to grow grain and vegetables in Vietnam and Croatia as well as Pakistan.

El ministro de agricultura congoleño, Rigobert Maboundou, dijo que este acuerdo forma parte de un Plan de Acción de su Gobierno para consolidar la agricultura como un pilar de su economía y que, además de este pacto, el mayor de este tipo firmado en África, tienen otros similares con China, Brasil e Israel.

"The motivation for South African farmers is simple," said Theo de Jager, Agri SA's deputy president, who helped negotiate the deal. "One in four farms must be redistributed in the next four or five years. So for new entrants into the sector and for those farmers who want to expand there is nowhere to go."

Vita Grain Group, which is backed by US $60 million of funding, owns more than 20 different strains of hybrid rice seeds. Vita Grain is looking for funding to expand its seed production beyond Africa to Asia, the US and South America. The company is also setting up a rice mill in Mauritius and is in talks with partners in Botswana, Madagascar and Mozambique to develop rice production units.

China's sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp, has bought a 14.5 per cent stake in grain trading and production firm Noble Group for US$850 million.

La COPAGEN mobilise pour arrêter la course effrénée vers l’expropriation « légalisée » des terres avec la complicité de certains décideurs

Sheik Mohammed Hussein Ali Al Amoudi, the second richest person in Saudi Arabia, is preparing to farm cereals on hundreds of thousands of hectares of Ethiopian land for export to Saudi Arabia

Un document interne, récemment mis en ligne sur le site web de l’IRRI, révèle que l’Institut a conseillé l’Arabie saoudite dans le contexte de sa stratégie d’acquisition de terres agricoles à l’étranger pour sa propre production alimentaire.

"They are selling off African land for a song," said Ndiogou Fall, president of the executive committee for the Network of Peasant Organizations and Producers in West Africa (ROPPA), which is calling for dialogue between governments, producers and African and foreign investors.

"On brade les terres africaines. On contraint des milliers de petits producteurs à la misère. Cela est insupportable. La terre doit rester un patrimoine de la communauté en Afrique", affirme ainsi le président du Comité exécutif du Réseau des organisations paysannes et des producteurs agricoles de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (ROPPA), Ndiogou Fall.

A new breed of colonialism is rampaging across the world, with rich nations buying up the natural resources of developing countries that can ill afford to sell. Some staggering deals have already been done, but angry locals are now trying to stop the landgrabs

For investors like Susan Payne, the chief executive of Emergent Asset Management, farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is a hot bet.

Ouyang Riping, PDG d’une société agricole chinoise, a une mission : transformer le Sénégal en grenier à sésame… pour la Chine ! Dakar lui cède 60 000 hectares pour cultiver et exporter le sésame vers Pékin. En échange, les chinois apprennent aux paysans sénégalais à obtenir deux récoltes de riz par an. Coopération originale ou marché de dupes ?

Africa’s agrarian questions are not adequately addressed by simply asking, “What is the role of African smallholders?”

"Nous pouvons être expulsés à n'importe quel moment. Ils vont devoir assécher la zone et tout ce qu'il nous restera sera la pauvreté". Bernard Onyongo, pêcheur de 65 ans, voit son mode de vie menacé par la ruée sur les terres arables africaines.

Le G8 entend mettre un peu d'ordre et de principes dans la ruée mondiale sur les terres arables des pays du sud, à défaut de pouvoir s'immiscer dans les transactions qui privent les populations des terres dont elles dépendent.

A focus on agricultural productivity should not become a cover for foreign private companies to grab land or impose expensive, input-intensive methods in the name of modernisation.

We challenge the line agencies, legislators and national government to immediately stop the leasing of public land to foreign corporations. Instead, public lands that have huge potential to ensure food security and nation building should be distributed to Filipino small farmers.

Le gouvernement du Cap-Vert a créé une société anonyme à capitaux publics en vue d’exploiter et gérer des terres agricoles mises à sa disposition par les autorités angolaises dans le cadre de la coopération entre les deux pays

If Indonesia decides to go ahead with leasing farmland, it should do so with caution, keeping an eye on both the risks and the opportunities. We need to understand that we have a very strong bargaining position.

Contrary to past trends, countries in the Global South are initiating much of the investment.

Uganda's minister of agriculture literally pleaded with the agribusiness delegates at a forum in Capetown to take advantage of Uganda’s extremely advantageous deals for private investors in the agricultural sector.