Ian Scoones summarises some of the discussion at the PLAAS Cape Town conference on the engagement of Brazil, China and South Africa in patterns of agrarian change.

L'accaparement des terres comme une forme de néo-colonialisme n'est pas une question de noms et d’origines, mais simplement une question liée à l'expansion mondiale du système capitaliste.

Steep growth in Chinese olive oil consumption, unlikely to be met soon by a budding domestic supply, is encouraging investors to get hold of olive farms and processing plants in producing countries.

The 16,000-hectare farm which Första AP-fonden bought in Australia in December was one of a clutch of purchases of farmland, worth some $100m, by the pension fund.

What can affected communities do when the World Bank Group has facilitated land grabs? For a better understanding of the practical steps that people can take, Righting Food interviewed Natalie Bridgeman Fields, the founder and Executive Director of Accountability Counsel

Right now, on the desks of Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) there is the background material for an application of credit guarantee for an 8000 ha sugar plantation and a refinery in Bagamoyo, Tanzania.

A U.N. intergovernmental body on food security has failed to adopt international guidelines on land governance, delaying efforts to regulate so-called land-grabbing as investors race to snap up agricultural land.

Some pension funds are beginning to question their investments in commodities after accusations that massive flows into the sector have distorted markets, fuelled food inflation and hurt poor nations.

Government has taken action to resolve lingering speculation and strengthen transparency surrounding the degree of foreign ownership in Australian agriculture.

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

Indonesian global palm oil giant, Golden Agri-Veroleum will invest more than US$1.6 billion dollars on more than 240,000 hectares of oil palm to boost the country’s oil palm sector.

Four months ago I travelled to the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines to research agriculture's new land grab phenomenon as part of my postgraduate research. I expected my findings to be a blend of arguments from both sides of the debate. However, I concluded that there was a strong case to be made against the proposition of a "win-win" situation for every stakeholder.

A possible cooperation between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Indonesia on the so-called food estate program in Papua, which spans around 2 million hectares, is beginning to take shape as talks continue. Elite Agro -- an Emirati agriculture giant -- was among the companies that the Indonesian government had been negotiating with.

“Salic, which is charged by royal decree to make strategic investments at home and abroad to ensure food security in Saudi Arabia, is a good fit for several of our State institutions, as well as for our private sector, in the area of agriculture, livestock and agribusiness," says Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia

GenZero will generate carbon offsets for Singapore by investing “north of US$20 to US$30 million” to restore about 100,000 ha of land in the Kwahu region of Ghana by planting cocoa and other plant species.

Four European development banks are financing a palm oil company in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is violating workers’ rights and dumping untreated waste, says a report by Human Rights Watch.

Institutional investors want access to farmland in Latin America, but they want it through a Delaware entity that can leap all of the local financial logistics.

Herman Shao-ming Hu and Kenny Zhang are finalising the purchase of a majority interest in the 190-year-old Van ­Diemen’s Land Company (VDL) in Tasmania, Australia.

The ‘land grab’ debate continues to evolve and today there is much more empirical data, as witnessed by the veritable explosion of publications.

Land grabs in Africa could herald a new dystopian age of hunger

Filipino firm SL Agritech Corp. and Brunei firm Four Bays Iman Sdn Bhd (FISB) have tied up for a 20,000 ha hybrid rice plantation in Mindanao.

The World Bank formally reiterates its concern over the large-scale corporate “land grabbing” that has affected vast swathes of Africa in recent years.

Farmers and activists are increasing pressure on the government to be more transparent about large-scale land deals with foreign firms and to make sure local communities benefit

The extent of the surge in UK farmland prices has driven foreign buyers and pension funds to the sidelines, leaving farmers to pay prices more than double those three years ago, property consultancy Savills said.

Within agriculture, conflicts revolve around land and water sources ownership and use. The case of Karatu Kiru valley sugarcane farming where one of the investors was killed by local community on May 31, 2011 serves as an illustration

"The world is running out of farm land quite rapidly and farm land is going to be a very, very precious commodity in time to come. ... Australians are pretty dozy and comfortable on this issue," says Julian Cribb.

Africa is up for sale by the acre to the highest bidder. But how can rice exports from Ethiopia to Saudi Arabia be justified?

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.

Executives from the South Korean company Hyundai are negotiating with state governments for the purchase of land in Brazil, with the objective of planting and exporting soya to South Korea.

Why produce a low-value crop such as wheat using expensive water when the FAO says the global wheat harvest will this year be second only to last year’s record?