Chayton already produces 10% of Zambia's soya and 5% of the country's wheat. Over the next 12 months, production will increase to at least 35% and 15% respectively.

The idea of combining the greed of investors with the fight against hunger as a mutually beneficial business venture has failed miserably

Australian farmer Doug Clarke says farmers should not be criticised for making a commercial return from selling their farms to Chinese investors, if the government’s current rules and regulations allow it.

Government-backed companies, as Hassad Food, have begun buying up farmland around the world, with Australia’s vast tracts of top quality primary production land a prime target.

Internationally-funded Guatemalan palm oil and sugar cane interests evict Mayan Qeqchi families from their historic lands, destroying homes and crops, killing one, injuring more, while thousands are without food or shelter.

The ECER has abundant land, which could fulfill the needs of Middle East countries that are looking for their food security program, says Malaysian official.

Australia's center-left Labor government said Tuesday it will examine foreign ownership of the country's rural land and agricultural food production in response to a spate of takeovers that have triggered anxiety about job losses and broader concerns about food security.

Public opinion is clearly against the Crafar farms sale on the basis that NZ is "selling the farm", while selling a controlling stake in a processing plant is seen as another issue altogether. There is a strong argument for conditionality either way, writes Fran O'Sullivan.

Critics say Australia's Labor party has failed to come to grips with country's future food security, including the acquisition of domestic farmland by foreign investors

Countries that have recently invited India, through the ministry of agriculture, to lease land for farming include Egypt, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Senegal, Sudan, Trinidad and Tobago and Tunisia.

Southern Pastures, registered in Auckland, is seeking $500 million from local and offshore investors to initially buy outright, or controlling shares in, farming concerns throughout the southern hemisphere, but with a bias towards New Zealand.

Even with new guidelines on land leases in Africa, the deals could lead to growing problems down the road, warned Emmy Simmons, a longtime USAID official

“At this point, Turkey cannot even produce enough food for itself. Why should it even think about renting its own land?” says Abdullah Aysu, a spokesman for the Initiative for the Confederation of Farmers’ Unions

Area nearly the size of France purchased, leased for food production around the world Africa, South America, parts of Europe targeted by cash-rich, food-poor nations

Ernest Corea, a former senior consultant with the Washington-based Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), told IPS the surrender of nationally-owned farm land and land rights to foreign interests - whether individuals, the corporate sector or governments - amounts to an erosion of sovereignty.

Cambodia will be the fourth country after Sudan, Egypt and Pakistan to receive UAE investments intended to achieve a food security plan drawn up by the government. Large-scale planting on Cambodian land acquired through purchase or 99-year lease may be launched there next year.

We need non-binding principles, not regulation, to make land grabbing win-win, says Japan's Prime Minister before the G8 Summit

It's a tsunami of land deals and, as all of the experts who have studied the phenomenon have agreed, no nation is truly prepared for its implications.

What we are witnessing in countries like Ethiopia today is an extreme form of the banana republic syndrome.

Investors from the UAE are considering a number of investments in Pakistan, despite escalating violence in the north-west of the country.

Growing food in foreign lands has a long history. But the 21st century version of outsourced agriculture presages something fundamentally new.

The 22,000-hectare Rushy Lagoon property has been a major dairy and beef producer for decades, but pine plantations could be in its near future, as UK's largest forestry asset manager has made a bid for it.

This acquisition also acts to solidify Unifrutti’s position as a leading grape grower and exporter in the Southern Hemisphere, giving the company control of 4,300 hectares of table grape farms producing approximately 15 million boxes, or 120,000 metric tons of fruit per year.

China and other nations are investing in African agriculture to diversify away from US trade, with China removing tariffs on imports from African countries with which it has diplomatic ties, and Qatar and the United Arab Emirates investing in farming and infrastructure.

Australian farmers aren’t the only ones cheering the rocketing price of almonds and beef from the simmering trade tensions between the US and China – a cohort of fund managers is also in the money.

New study exposes how land grabs in various forms have led to doubling land prices globally since 2008, and tripling in Central Europe, placing unprecedented strain on farmers and rural communities.

Rigo Rice has agreed to partner with the National Government and Wilmar International Limited in a joint venture to establish a large-scale commercial and irrigated rice farm on 5,000 ha

To give a wider swath of investors access to farmland as an asset class, Nuveen Natural Capital is opening its Global Farmland Strategy to qualified retail investors through an evergreen private-market fund.

TIAA has always insisted that its joint ventures with Brazilian sugar company Cosan invest responsibly. But leaked documents show they ignored a litany of red flags when buying farms in a region long known for land grabbing.

Local ranchers, joined by Harvard students, oppose university’s plans to build reservoirs at Its large vineyard in California.