Farmland is a compelling way to capitalize on the coming bull market in agricultural commodities, but it’s a high-risk proposition.

Wary of fluctuations on Wall Street, more wealthy Americans, private funds and foreigners are putting money into parcels of cornfields, fruit orchards and other US agricultural products.

GRAIN says the World Bank's much anticipated report on the global farmland grab is both a disappointment and a failure.

The number of investment projects in the agricultural sector in sub-Saharan Africa is at "unprecedented" levels, said Paul Runge of Africa Project Access at the ag investment conference in Durban

African governments need to raise their level of accountability and ensure that they improve and protect their own food security through quid pro quo side-agreements negotiated when they lease or sell their arable land to foreign interests, says Keith Mullin of Thompson Reuters

The creation this week of the 'Save our Farms' campaign to block foreign ownership of New Zealand farm land has fired up a debate that needs to be had.

If the offer is successful, Singapore's Olam will either hold 100 per cent or between 50.1 per cent and 90 per cent of NZ Farming Systems Uruguay

Opponents of land grabbing say the capital, technology and expertise from large land investments are unlikely to trickle down to poor farmers.

"We have Indonesians and Malaysians coming in and saying we want 100,000 hectares to make PNG a rice producing country," says PNG’s Deputy Prime Minister Sir Puka Temu

Report on the growing popularity of farmland investment in the developing world for European pension funds

Pension funds are deepening their commitment to farmland, upping investments by billions of dollars and moving to active strategies, as a hedge against potential inflation and to diversifty from riskier investments.

A new class of farmers is on the rise in Ukraine. Three articles about the situation with foreign investors taking control of the country's farmlands.

With the emerging land investments a new set of challenges emerges for the woman farmer.

In Brazil, El Tejar and others are investing in ownership and hope to capture land appreciation. BrasilAgro brags that it sold one farm for a gain of 116 percent in just 17 months.

"This workshop is the first in the world to explicitly discuss the implications of the water/food/land deals nexus," according to Martin Keulertz, Department of Geography, King’s College London

Cargill and Bunge among firms setting up funds to buy farms in Asia and South America.

"In the age of derivatives and evaporating valuations, farmland is gold with a cash flow."

Capital flows into Africa, include farmland acquisitions by foreign investors, rose 16 percent in 2008 to a record $62 billion even as FDI that year fell 20 percent worldwide

MCC is playing a key role in commodifying Africa’s farmlands

Saudi Arabia is attempting to strengthen its position in what seems certain to be a growing competition for food among the nations of the Middle East.

European pension funds are investing in global farmland, with a focus on emerging markets. If political problems arise, “You'll have the World Bank on your side,” SilverStreet's chief investment officer said.

The recent large-scale acquisition of land in Kenya and in Africa in general happens on murky terrain as governments negotiate behind closed doors.

"We need to employ some protectionist policies to save our continent from a new form of colonization"

Two South African asset management firms launched a 3 billion rand farmland investment fund on Wednesday that is expected to help boost agricultural development in Africa's biggest economy.

In the past two years there has been a remarkable increase in purchases of large-scale farmland by foreigners throughout Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Citadel's Karim Sadek dismisses talk of land grabbing as an “academic concern”, saying “there should definitely be a priority for the produce to be sold on the local market, if there is a paying market for it”.

There is something amazingly patronising in the way Payne claims that Emergent has ‘adopted’ a Mozambican village of 3,000 people and hired its citizens to clear 2,000 acres of land to farm it with her firm.

Listening to Susan Payne you could be forgiven for thinking land funds are a holy grail for the ethical investor: money-making opportunities with a sanctifying air of do-goodery.

Billionaire George Soros’s Adecoagro venture, which invests in agriculture and renewable energy in Latin America, is considering an initial public offering to help fund projects in Brazil that include a $700 million sugar mill.

As interest in transnational land acquisition for food production grows, the importance of legal customary tenure recognition becomes more apparent.