He confirmed that the Ministry received very wide offers of investment by Arab and foreign investors.

The much-discussed Congo land-lease, granting 200,000 hectares to South African farmers with a further 10 million hectares in the balance, appears to mark a departure from the usual terms underpinning foreign acquisition of fertile land by multinationals

A delegation of 26 Egyptian agriculture companies led by Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza, is now inspecting land proposed by the Ethiopian government for Egyptian investment projects.

Citadel Capital will deploy significant capital across East Africa in 2010 in sectors spanning from agriculture to consumer foods.

"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.

"Qatar is in the process of formulating a national strategy for food security that we expect to shift from a focus on land ownership in developing countries to land leases and joint ventures with the private sector in developed countries," reports the US Embassy in Doha

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.

Sime Darby Plantation Sdn Bhd is exploring opportunities in other African countries besides Liberia for its palm oil business expansion.

China's $200 billion sovereign wealth fund has added privately-held commodities trader Glencore International AG, which also controls around 300,000 ha of farmland, to its roster of approved investment partners as it deepens its access to global raw material markets, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters

Civil society, including African farmers unions, need to educate local people that such land deals are not in their interests, however couched in 'win-win' terminology they appear to be.

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.

The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has launched a venture aiming to invest in food production worldwide focusing on the acquisition and development of existing agribusiness companies rather than the lease of large tracts of farmland.

An internal document recently posted on IRRI's website reveals that the Institute has been advising Saudi Arabia in the context of its strategy to acquire farm land overseas for its own food production.

Pursuing its strategy of penetrating the Middle East market, the company has set up a special committee to study the possibility to increase exports to the region. So far, the company has signed a farming contract with Bahrain for supplying food products.

"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.

Laos has approached Thailand as a partner in a joint venture with Kuwait to grow rice in Laos. The Lao government has allocated 200,000ha.