US embassy in Kuwait reports on discussions with Kuwaiti officials on acquiring farmland overseas for food security or profit

"I think it is not right to sell or give your land to foreigners... until you have exhausted every local possibility," said Osama Daoud, chief executive of the Sudanese DAL group which runs large agricultural projects.

Agribusiness and global investors are scooping up farmland. Are corporate farmers the new colonialists? asks BusinessWeek

At a two-day conference near the Moroccan capital Rabat, local officials sought to convince Gulf investors that heavy bureaucracy and complex land ownership rules, long seen as decisive obstacles, are a thing of the past.

There’s a whole school of economic thought that says that Collier is wrong, that big is not necessarily better in agriculture — and that the land deals therefore might be unwise not because they’re wrong but because they’re unprofitable.

Jannat has a target of securing 100,000 to 215,000 hectares of land abroad, including $100m in African investments, says Mohammed Abdulla al-Rajhi, chairman of Jannat and deputy chairman of Tadco.

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

A look at land grabbing in Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea with a particular focus on pastoral and peasant farming communities, by Dr. Zeremariam Fre

Paul Conway, senior vice-president at Cargill, calls food self-sufficiency "a nonsense" and warns that overseas food production through land grabs will likely run into export bans by host countries

New code of conduct could limit aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states who have been buying vast tracts of agricultural land

Goldman Sachs' welcoming outlook on landgrab deals will be scrutinised because banks were criticised by some for fuelling speculation in commodities last year.

CHOBE agrivision will become the largest agri-business in Zambia surpassing ZAMBEFF PLC according to owners Chayton Capital

Civil society organizations should strengthen and support national and regional networks working against AGRA and land grabs in Africa, say Friends of the Earth and allies

Stephen Murphy, managing director of institutional fundraising, said the firm had eyed agriculture and infrastructure investments in Uganda.

Gulf Arab states will pour $2 billion into a new agricultural fund in coming months to secure food supplies by buying stakes in existing agricultural firms, an executive involved in the fund's creation said on Sunday.

Egyptian private equity firm Citadel Capital is investing in 210,000 ha of farmland in Sudan, where it got the right to the land for 99 years.

The government of Tanzania has refuted media reports indicating that it has leased out 1000 square kilometres of farmland to South Koreans.

South Korea will develop 100,000 ha of farmland in Tanzania to make inroads into African and European markets, a state-run rural development corporation said Thursday.

"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.

Resource-hungry China has so far passed over investing in high-priced farmlands of South America in favor of Africa, with its less developed commodities markets, greater need for financing and open labor laws.

Gulf states buying farmland in developing nations for food security face the risk of damaging their reputation as international investors as the deals are seen as land grabs, a Rothschild executive said yesterday.

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.

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

A scramble by wealthy states to snap up developing world farmland to ensure their own food security -- especially in Africa -- could trigger conflict in poorer countries, World Food Programme deputy executive director Sheila Sisulu said on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Egypt. "I fear... conflict," she said.

The emergence of the farmland asset class is not without pitfalls with the provision of food always highly political and a tentative global economic recovery potentially threatened by the H1N1 flu pandemic, fund managers said.

Analysts say Moscow's plan, which would attract international commodity firms, might require a more open approach to investment in land

The European Union is concerned by the trend of foreign investors and countries acquiring large tracts of farmland in developing countries to guarantee their own food security, a senior EU official said on Wednesday.

Since details emerged of Saudi Arabia’s plans to ensure supplies of wheat, rice, corn, soya beans and alfalfa through overseas agricultural investments, officials have insisted that they intended the programme to be private-sector led.