In what would be an extraordinary migration, the Georgian government has invited South Africa's farmers to buy up land in the country for next to nothing in exchange for bringing their expertise and knowledge of modern farming methods.

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

Tareq al- Zadjali, director general of the Arab Organization for Agriculture Development, wants to see more Arabs investing in agriculture within the Arab worlds’ borders rather than buying farms abroad in Asia and Africa.

After trumpeting Chinese investment in "a very large agricultural project" in the Bahamas that would be up and running by September, senior government officials are now backing off the subject.

Someone needs to put Fonterra and the Feds into the same room.

People see the Chinese as moving into Africa, kicking poor farmers off their land, and growing food to be shipped back to China for domestic consumption. This seems unlikely, however, says Doug Saunders.

Even with new guidelines on land leases in Africa, the deals could lead to growing problems down the road, warned Emmy Simmons, a longtime USAID official

Small scale farming which is prevalent in rural Tanzania has no future but instead the country needs large scale commercial farmers including those from abroad to inject capital and technology, argues Professor.

Until last year, people in the Ethiopian settlement of Elliah earned a living by farming their land and fishing. Now, they are employees.

And now the bad news. FAO has taken a U-turn in its clear position on the race by food-importing countries and private companies to buy land overseas for domestic food and agriculture needs.

The landgrab heats up, and the neocolonialists stake their claims.

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

De Jager is most excited about an impending Agri SA fact-finding mission to Libya at the invitation of President Muammar Gaddafi. "If we succeed there, we can succeed anywhere in Africa."

The plan to create a land bank brings back memories of the fury that greeted proposals by the Qatar government to buy 40,000 hectares in Tana River for agricultural purposes in exchange for $3.5 billion for the Kenya government to build a second deep-water port in Lamu.

Zimbabwe Investments Authority acting chief executive Mrs Elina Karwi said the most basic requirement towards facilitating agriculture-related FDI was making land for agriculture available.

There may emerge a situation when Ukrainians will be starving in spite of having the most fertile black earth.

The Qatari land deal in Kenya’s Tana River Delta has been seized upon by locals who have promised to fight it – to the death, if it comes to that.

Alarmed by exporters’ trade restrictions, food importing countries have realised that their dependence on the agricultural market makes them vulnerable not only to a surge in prices but, more crucially, to an interruption in supplies.

Land grabbing and food speculation are not just overseas phenomena; they are also happening in North America.

The European Union is coercing some West African governments into allowing European-based fishing companies to deplete West Africa’s fishing stocks in a new "food colonialism" that is now taking place between rich and poor countries around the world, according to British author George Monbiot.

More than 20 million hectares of farmland in Africa and Latin America are now in the hands of foreign governments and companies, a sign of a global "land grab" that got a boost from last year's food crisis.

Food-importing nations from South Korea to Saudi Arabia may step up purchases or leases of overseas farmland to lock in supplies amid concern prices may again surge. “We’re going to see more of this, especially from countries that are quite dependent on imports,” Brady Sidwell, head of advisory at Rabobank Groep NV’s Northeast Asia Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory Group, said in a Bloomberg Television interview broadcast today.

“We are looking at the food sector, financial services, telecommunications, hospitality and transport,” Zain said, adding the firm was aiming to buy minority stakes that would give it “some extent of control”.

Deposed President Marc Ravalomanana brought the house of Madagascar down upon himself. But he has been replaced by a young untested leader who, although he has some public support, is full of himself and clearly contemptuous of democratic institutions. The result is that investment in Madagascar, and perhaps across the continent, will be hurt, writes Stephen Hayes

Saudi Arabia has announced the arrival of the first food crop harvested in Saudi-owned farms abroad, in a sign that the kingdom is moving faster than expected to outsource agricultural production.

As the Caribbean and the rest of the world are still grappling with the global food crisis, Guyana is seeking to sell its vast land and water resources to United States investors as an area suitable for agriculture and aquaculture investment.

The Dubai-based think-tank Gulf Research Centre, in its food inflation report released last month, noted that agriculture production in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) countries is on the decline, and its exposure to unstable global food supplies would increase in the future. It called on the GCC to develop links with countries rich in arable land.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is in talks with Sudan and other countries to grow grains to meet its strategic food needs.