Oxfam report says international land investors and biofuel producers have taken over land around the world that could feed nearly 1 billion people.

In debate over large scale investments in agriculture in Australia, there are some broader issues about foreign investment that don’t seem to get talked about enough.

The sale of Cubbie Station to a Chinese-led consortium has divided Australia on the issue of foreign investment.

China’s giant sovereign wealth fund is looking to make its first significant investment in the Australian dairy industry, as it tries to lock up food ­supplies for its growing middle class.

Since Jane Mendillo took over the endowment in July 2008, Harvard’s holdings of forests, farms and other natural resources in Brazil as well as in New Zealand and Romania have grown to about 10 percent of the portfolio -- more than $3 billion -- and she wants to add more.

When a Chinese investor bought a farm outside this village a few years back, he was pleased enough to name it Golden Land. The soil was rich, the sunshine and rain bountiful. The land, deep in rural Russia, was also largely devoid of people. No more.

As the amount of investor-owned farmland grows in Saskatchewan, so do concerns about foreign ownership and loopholes in the province’s farmland ownership regulations.

It is understood the agricultural division of the $163 billion Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has been sniffing around Australian agricultural land recently and has had discussions in Australia with landholders such as PrimeAg.

The approved sale of sprawling Australian cotton farm Cubbie Station to Chinese interests has sparked a political row as Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce insists foreign ownership is not in the national interest.

For most Ugandans, the processes that government uses to acquire land for investment are not clearly understood. The land valuation processes, the purchase price and related transactions are never clear, leaving the majority of the occupants vulnerable.

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.

The ethics complaint was filed by the Des Moines-based citizen group, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, for misusing his membership on the Iowa Board of Regents that oversees Iowa's public universities to advance an "African land grab".

Adecoagro, which owns nearly 300,000 hectares of land in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, said it had sold its San Jose site for $1,212 per hectare, compared with a purchase price of $85 per hectare in 2002.

African Development Bank (AfDB) country director, Freddie Kwesiga, said the co-operating partners look forward to specific interventions to ensure improved land tenure and equitable access to land by partnerships of small, medium and large-scale investors.

Leading Australian economists, commentators and even political enemies have joined the federal Minister for Trade and Investment Craig Emerson in condemning Opposition plans to tighten control over foreign investment.

Jessica Mutch spoke to Fred Pearce in London about the Crafar farm buy-up by a Chinese company and whether New Zealand should be nervous about land grabbing.

There's growing interest in who invests in Australian companies and who buys Australian land, with more discussion around the topic of global food security.

A Chinese property conglomerate is bidding for a 15,000 hectare farming project in the Australian outback as Canberra looks to open the remote north for farming to tap booming demand for food from Asia, especially China.

In the last five years, land concessions totaling tens of thousands of hectares have been granted to private companies for industrial sugarcane production in Cambodia.

Drought conditions in much of the US this year could turn into a boon, rather than a bust, for institutional investors in farmland, timber and agricultural stocks.

Resource conflicts are building in the southernmost part of West Papua, as agribusiness companies stealthily invade the forests, leaving its people dispossessed.

Herakles says it will provide locals with steady work, roads and health care. But critics call the planned plantation, which would cover Fabe and at least 30 other forest villages in Cameroon, a land grab. Special report from Reuters.

Indigenous communities are under threat from a recent spurt of investors and multinational companies interested in putting their money into Kenyan oil, mining, wind farms and agribusiness projects.

The £1.9bn pension fund of the UK’s Environment Agency is set to unveil a new investment strategy later this month, including plans to invest in farmland and forestry for the first time.

The US-based Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement say they want senior government officials involved in the deal investigated and prosecuted for accepting a deal that will be detrimental to the welfare of Tanzanians.

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

At least one person is being killed in an environmental dispute around the world each week as the battle for land, natural resources and forests becomes increasingly violent, a report said on Tuesday.

Adecoagro, the agricultural company that counts George Soros as its biggest investor, is giving potential buyers the chance to get a hold of farms in Brazil and Argentina at a 36 percent discount to its net assets.

Foreign ownership of farm land is a sensitive issue in Australia and "across the ditch" in New Zealand.

The government's plans to make northern Australia into an Asian food bowl with the help of Chinese investment may run into trouble, after a new poll confirmed opposition to foreigners buying the farm.