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.

Gulf oil producers are considering plans to invest in farming projects in the Philippines to face a steady increase in domestic food demand and reduce a painful import bill, said the region's private sector leader.

Nomadic herders, rarely a priority for governments, are being dispossessed by bioethanol developments in Kenya, says Michael Taylor of the International Land Coalition (ILC), and they also depend on the “unused” land that Madagascar offered Daewoo.

The collaboration with Sarh Attaqnia Co and CMEC aims to unlock untapped land resources of Pakistan by bringing fallow lands under cultivation through the Corporate Agriculture Farming initiative.

A Dutch-run flower farm in northern Ethiopia was among a series of foreign-owned plantations attacked by anti-government protesters as unrest in the country spreads.

The property of a Dutch agricultural company, Solagrow, was torched by hundreds of people, angered by the company having fenced off 100 hectares of prime communal grazing land, leased by the government.

US pension fund manager TIAA-CREF, under pressure to put cash to work after having raised $2bn for TIAA-CREF Global Agriculture, agreed to purchase 12,528 ha of farmland in Florida.

African and US firms announce an additional $7 bn in spending to promote ag development in Africa, even though “private interests do not always line up with foreign policy objectives,” such as when they purchase land, displacing villagers.

“Farmland has now become the latest scarce ‘hot’ commodity for all sorts of speculators who have absolutely no interest in agriculture,” says John Peck of Wisconsin-based Family Farm Defenders.

Progress toward securing the land rights of forest communities has slowed around the world, with some hard-won gains threatening to be rolled back in some countries even as others see advances, say forest experts.

A multi-million dollar “ethical” plantation development in northwestern Mozambique - the initiative of a clutch of Scandinavian faith-based organizations - has faced alleged acts of sabotage by the very people it was designed to assist, illustrating the divisions between foreign benefactors and local communities.

Burma has become the “latest flashpoint in an alarming trend” of global land grabs, which continue to wreak havoc on economic development and human rights around the world, two new reports have warned.

Disclosure is the only option. To deny that products have their origins in land leased or purchased under dubious circumstances will only push discerning consumers away. The “fair use” or “land grab free” labels could find their way on food and other products in the coming decade.

Swedish pensions money is threatening the livelihoods of small farming communities in Brazil and risk speeding up the devastation of the rainforest.

The palm oil industry is "at the dawn of a new period of expansion" in part thanks to increasing interest from food groups, which are moving into production to ensure supplies of an increasingly important commodity.

Developers hover as 5 million hectares, and national pride, are signed away in 99-year leases that have raised fears of corruption.

Foreign ownership of Australian land and agribusiness will soon be monitored.

Oxfam concerned that land grabbing not being addressed adequately and with enough of a sense of urgency.

Singapore-listed Golden Agri Resources said it was “actively evaluating” taking a share in a 220,000-hectare project being offered by the government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

South Africa, which became a net importer of food two years ago after two decades of net exporting, is developing African agricultural ambitions of its own.

Under the new policy, foreign land ownership would be tied to “productivity and partnership models with South African citizens,” minister Gugile Nkwinti told parliament.

Lester Brown, the president of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute, says even if the investor comes in wielding impressive, shiny new technology, it will be of little benefit to the small farm holder.

A move by Madagascar's army-backed leader to nix a huge South Korean farming deal has exposed the risks of such ventures in Africa, where land remains an emotive issue prone to populist or nationalist opposition.

Greenpeace Netherlands is taking legal action to block the giant meat company's destructive expansion plans in Nigeria.

Protest by community members opposed to a soil carbon project on Indigenous-owned grazing land prevented the signing of a 40-year lease on some 68,000 hectares of land as part of the much larger Kajiado Rangeland Carbon Project.

In Europe, the appropriation of agricultural land by other actors, such as investors and supermarkets, raises concerns by driving up prices and reducing access for future farmers, as well as threatening food security and the sustainability of the EU.

Google will buy 50,000 metric tons of carbon removal credits by 2030 from Mombak, which purchases degraded land from farmers and ranchers or partners with them to replant native species in the Amazon rainforest

The group, which has a dairy joint venture with Israel's LR Group, says it intends to increase its dairy capacity and invest in a 3,000-hectare property in Mindoro to "plant corn for cows" and for other purposes.

Across the region, people have been harassed, threatened and criminally charged in retaliation for opposing land and water grabs linked to mining, dams and industrial agriculture, cementing the region’s ranking as one of the world’s most perilous for environmental and land rights defenders.

Land conflicts in Brazil broke a record in 2020 for the second year running, reaching 1,576 cases — the highest since 1985, according to the Pastoral Land Commission.