As election nears, government's land policies have become a campaign issue

Sifca Group, which owns Africa’s biggest palm-oil refinery located in Ivory Coast, said it plans to spend $417 million in the next five years on plantations and factories in Ghana, Nigeria and Liberia.

Miami-based company's investment deal includes the acquisition of farmland and establishment of private farms. Similar deal signed the previous week with Ghana.

Bonnefield Financial, a farmland investment company based in Ottawa, announced this week that it has acquired about 6,500 acres of lush Dufferin County potato fields in what it called one of the largest farmland transactions in Canadian history.

With the huge export potentials of banana, RP Bahrain Harvest Inc. is putting up a plantation in the Philippines with an initial investment of P85 million.

Documents suggest Cargill acquired thousands of acres in the Vichada department from small farmers through 19 different legal entities controlled by four Cargill subsidiaries.

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.

Managing director of SABMiller Africa says Africa needs both large-scale commercial farming and smallholders and calls for "a fair and enforceable system" of land rights

China is headed to spend a record this year on food assets and farms after a $32.7 billion splurge in the past five years and just $4.2 billion in the prior half-decade, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Farmers in Mozambique are calling on the governments of Japan, Brazil and Mozambique to halt a project aimed at supporting agricultural development there, saying it will result in land grabs.

“Buyers are interested in large surfaces located in a single region with as high a consolidation level as possible, with access to the water supply and irrigation infrastructure"

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.

Translation of an interview given by the coordinator of the consulting firm responsible for developing the ProSavana master plan and coordinating private sector investment.

About 40 ethnic activist groups are calling on the government, ethnic militias and the international community to address a surge in land-grabbing, as companies move into Burma’s ethnic regions following recent ceasefire agreements.

A visit to Mozambique dispels any notion that big business is going to ‘feed Africa’. Hazel Healy reports on a land rush in full swing.

Land conflicts are causing delays in Sime Darby and Golden Veroleum's oil palm plantation plans in Liberia.

The member countries also agreed to draft a unified strategy for cooperation with other Arab countries that have agricultural land, including Sudan, Morocco and Yemen, as well as with African countries.

Last week, hundreds of Sudanese protested in Eastern Khartoum demanding the government revoke the sale of farming lands to Gulf investors. There is no logical reason behind these demonstrations except ignorance of the reality of the GCC approach, says economist.

There is "a wall of money" looking for a home in agricultural investments worldwide, say managers for BlackRock's London-based World Agriculture Fund.

Prime Minister John Key has told Chinese officials that foreign ownership of farmland is a sensitive issue in New Zealand.

The acquisition takes to 422,000 hectares the area which Kernel controls in the Ukraine – an area bigger than Luxembourg or most UK counties.

Building land inventories, Wikipedia-style, would be a cheap and easy way for poor, rural communities to compile a record of property rights and land usage patterns and could reduce corruption and help lessen illegal land grabs.

"The World Bank has launched a consultative process with all stakeholders to review and update our environmental and social safeguards policies, which will be informed by the VGs. Land acquisition is a part of this conversation."

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

China's ambassador says New Zealand has "over thought" his country's interest in acquiring land here, claiming other major farm purchases are unlikely.

The Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act was first passed in 1980 by Congress to limit foreign control over US farmland. Obama now wants things changed.

The Chinese government has long encouraged businesses to invest in agriculture abroad, and Xi Jinping's first foreign trip as president in the past week involved visits to three African countries.

BRICS states, except Russia, are enhancing and facilitating land grabs abroad in a way that is inconsistent with their proclamations of sustainable development, cooperation solidarity, and respect of national sovereignty.

In recent times the practice of land grabbing (which is intrinsically tied with water grabbing) has increased.

Leery of product safety in China, Zhu Zhangjin is urging farmers to invest abroad like he has