A controversial new farms policy has led to a number of arrests and the killings of 10 local farmers, say local activists.

As the world's available farming land shrinks in the face of population growth, climate change and soil degradation, Australia's vast tracts of land are going to be increasingly important for global food security. Is the sell-off in Australia's long term interests?

The UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) said that so far trade and investment deals with partners in the south are merely reinforcing a long-standing trend with the north in which African countries export farm produce, minerals, ores, and crude oil, and import manufactured goods.

The food crisis in African states will not be solved by investment to spur agricultural production because the problem is not food output but poverty that is making food unaffordable for urban Africans.

"Over the past four years we have, on Schaffer's behalf, frequently raised concerns about various impediments to the sugar project with many senior Malian officials," reports the US mission in Bamako

Hundreds of farmers from the Ilua community of Ondo West Local Government Area of Ondo state have protested over an alleged encroachment, destruction, and sales of their cocoa plantations by the state government to foreign companies.

Earthworm Foundation visited the plantations run by Socfin’s subsidiaries, one in Liberia and the other in Cameroon, where communities and local and international organizations had raised serious allegations of sexual harassment, land grabs, pollution and unfair labor practices.

African Agriculture Inc’s vision, according to Gora Seck, President of the Board, LFT Senegal, is to create 5,000 jobs, sow over 20,000 hectares and develop exports of alfalfa to other countries.

US-based African Agriculture Inc., which wholly owns the 20,000 ha Les Fermes de la Teranga in northern Senegal, is going to do an IPO to raise funds for its first 10,000 ha planting.

In Liberia, a unit of the world’s second-largest palm oil company has admitted to destroying forests and violating the rights of indigenous people. Yet its parent is among the industry’s leaders in investor ratings for ESG policies.

Indonesia's Minister of State-Owned Enterprises said that the aim was to boost food security in the country and improve the quality of domestically grown products to give them export value, with a view to exporting to countries in Africa and the Middle East.

Plans are underway to ensure the family gets a portion of Yala Swamp land - 3,700 hectares - to develop sugarcane.

Dangote said he would expand the project and exploit what he called Katsina’s vast arable land for other agriculture initiatives and allied business ventures.

Malaysia's Bewani Oil Palm Plantation Limited is set to complete planting of 20,000 hectares of palms by 2019 in West Sepik province, Papua New Guinea

When the government of Paraguay enacted a law banning deforestation in 2004, it marked what might have become one of the most significant success stories in global forest conservation. Instead, it helped spark one of the world’s most pressing environmental crises.

The Chinese company joining forces with Gina Rinehart to buy the Kidman cattle empire has one hurdle to clear in a separate deal to secure a cluster of stations in the Goldfields.

There has been growing evidence that forest land grabbing by both individuals as well as a powerful alliance of international corporations and government officials is one of the major factors currently driving this loss of forest cover.

Norway’s central bank is divesting the country’s $870 billion pension fund of its holdings in four Asian multinationals for palm oil in Southeast Asia. POSCO and Daewoo were excluded for the activities in Merauke, Indonesia’s Papua province.

Chinese buyers are in negotiations to buy another well-known south-west Queensland cropping property of 11,935 ha for more than $36 million.

Fakfak (on the Southern Coast of West Papua Province), has plans to start a program to develop integrated agribusiness similar to MIFEE in Merauke.

Wilmar says it plans to expand its oil palm plantations holdings in West Africa and to start producing sugar in Burma.

Olam is working closely with the Government of Gabon where it has developed the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil New Planting Procedure in Africa.

Karuturi, which has 300,000 ha in Ethiopia, is now targeting the DRC, Tanzania, Mozambique, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

Failing rains and drought are not the primary causes of the chronic food shortage and persistent famine hitting Ethiopia given the immense potential the country has.

Australia is "asleep at the wheel" when it comes to foreign companies buying important agricultural land and greater scrutiny is needed, farmers say.

Across Africa and the developing world, a new global land rush is gobbling up large expanses of arable land.

With the emerging land investments a new set of challenges emerges for the woman farmer.

In Mali the government has approved long-term leases for outside investors to develop more than 160,000 hectares of land. Local farmers say they fear being pushed out.

"The reasons [Ukrainians] choose to lease [Landkom] their land has nothing to do with money - it is an emotional desire to see their region go forward, that's all," says Paul Spinks.

The question of land ownership in Africa has become more pertinent as foreign investors tap a global need for food and energy security by investing in land and agricultural or biofuel projects in the developing world.