"We are not closing the book on farmlands, but for the time being we are focusing on other layers of the chain," says vice president for business development at Hassad Food.

South Africa’s proposed laws to restrict foreigners from owning land will apply to farms and exclude residential property, Rural Development and Land Affairs Minister Gugile Nkwinti said.

Many members of communities that have lost land to the development of the plantations since 2010, say they will continue to protest and fight against the evictions, in hopes of eventual change.

The Philippine Palm Oil Development Council wants government to support its road map of developing 300,000 hectares for oil palm in the next ten years with Mindanao as a main investment area.

Saudi Star Agricultural Development Plc, an Ethiopian company owned by billionaire Mohamed al-Amoudi, said it plans to invest $100 million in a rice farm in western Ethiopia next year to kick-start the stalled project.

This publication draws on the work undertaken by members of the ‘Land Tenure and Development’ Technical Committee set up by French Agency for Development (AFD).

Over the past fifteen years, foreign companies have signed over 60 deals covering nearly 4 million hectares in central and western Africa for the development of oil palm plantations, reports GRAIN.

Silas Sikor of the Sustainable Development Institute responds to Sir Jonathon Porritt's suggestion that oil palm plantations are a solution to poverty.

"Significant" large-scale plantation projects are said to be in development in Indonesia, the Philippines and West Africa.

Myanmar's swift economic development has been marked by the rise of a new class of political dissidents: the ploughing protesters.

Union Development Group continues to bulldoze the land of Koh Kong province families. Villagers say the company is breaking with its concession agreement by planting cassava instead of building a luxury resort.

Land grabbing has taken on a distinct characteristic in Latin America, as Cristobal Kay, a specialist in development and agrarian reform, explains.

The government pledges to continue supporting Rufiji Basin Development Authority (RUBADA) in its endeavour to encourage large scale plantations in the country

The Pakistani company MCG Consulting, which had been working with Saudi Star Agricultural Development Plc on a rice farm in the Gambella Regional State, has pulled out of the project.

Tanzania's President says hoarding large chunks of land without developing them for years retards national development and impoverishes subsistence farmers.

Commerce and Industry Minister Tawfiq Al-Rabiah has approved the establishment of a new East Asia Agricultural Development and Investment Company to invest in farming.

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.

New research from War on Want reveals that the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) has been using the aid budget to promote the interests of multinational food companies in Africa.

Kenana Sugar Company is the head of the spear of the Sudanese project for agricultural development. While governments and Arab companies discuss strategies for the sector, the organisation plans to invest US$ 2 billion over the next five years in several expansion projects.

Increased agricultural development in Zambia will actually compromise the country’s food security as peasant farmers continue to be driven off their customary land to pave the way for large-scale local and foreign agribusiness.

Villagers in Mozambique are caught between their government's need to promote agricultural development through foreign investment and to protect the rights of the citizens who depend on that land.

Iowa Regent Bruce Rastetter has defended working with Iowa State Univ. to pursue a large-scale land development in Africa and blamed growing criticism over his involvement on misinformation and public relations mistakes.

With minimal consultation, governments and local authorities are signing away huge tracts of land for lease on the cheap. Now communities are raising their voices in opposition to these projects that bring little local development.

International development and environment charities to protest against 'land grab' outside Agriculture Investment Summit

Australia's federal government has set up a working group to assist with the development of a Commonwealth register of foreign owned agricultural land.

Since 2009, Whitestone (SL) Limited has managed to obtain 13 leasehold titles covering a staggering 1.34 million acres of land in the Bombali and Koinadugu Districts of Northern Sierra Leone for large-scale agricultural development.

Land is the missing element at next month's big UN sustainable development summit known as Rio+20, where nations of the world will meet June 20-22 with the goal of setting a new course to ensure the survival and flourishing of humanity.

Against a backdrop of rising world wheat prices, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has chosen Kazakhstan as the destination for its first ever equity investment in farming.

So is it a land grab or a development opportunity? Is land grabbing actually good for Africa? BBC Africa Debate discusses the issue in Freetown in Sierra Leone.

BASF interviews Prof. Dr. Harald von Witzke, International Agricultural Trade and Development Institute of the Humboldt University, Berlin