News of the deal has aroused very vehement protest from the Sudanese Farmer’s Union and the tenants in the Gezira Scheme.

Du point de vue de GRAIN, ce rapport très attendu de la Banque mondiale est à la fois une déception et un échec.

GRAIN says the World Bank's much anticipated report on the global farmland grab is both a disappointment and a failure.

Hassad Food knows how to shop. The $1b subsidiary of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund finalised a $500m agreement last year to grow wheat & rice on 100,000 ha in Sudan and has announced plans to invest $700m worldwide this year.

La polémique autour de l'accaparement de terres, en particulier en Afrique, est relancée par une étude de la Banque mondiale qui tarde à être publiée alors que le cours du blé repart à la hausse

It is not too late for equitable partnerships to flourish between foreign investors and local communities.

Africa's untapped agriculture potential make it an ideal partner for resource-constrained Middle Eastern countries that seek to improve their food security, a new report from Standard Chartered Bank said.

A farmland development group backed by Jacob Rothschild is to become the first Brazilian company to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange

Unfortunately, the US Senate inquiry into Goldman Sach's alleged malfeasance is unlikely to question why the company in 2008 decided to acquire ten intensive poultry farms in China's Hunan and Fujian provinces for $300 million.

FIDP has launched a Cambodia and Laos fund, “an extended China play” that will focus largely on agriculture, seeking to benefit from China’s desire for food security.

Les organisations mondiales et les ONG commencent à s'alarmer de l'ampleur du rachat des terres agricoles. Le problème, selon elles, c'est que ce sont les gouvernements des pays hôtes qui négocient directement les accords avec les investisseurs, sans consulter les populations concernées.

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

China's $200 billion sovereign wealth fund has added privately-held commodities trader Glencore International AG, which also controls around 300,000 ha of farmland, to its roster of approved investment partners as it deepens its access to global raw material markets, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters

Civil society, including African farmers unions, need to educate local people that such land deals are not in their interests, however couched in 'win-win' terminology they appear to be.

A new breed of colonialism is rampaging across the world, with rich nations buying up the natural resources of developing countries that can ill afford to sell. Some staggering deals have already been done, but angry locals are now trying to stop the landgrabs

A focus on agricultural productivity should not become a cover for foreign private companies to grab land or impose expensive, input-intensive methods in the name of modernisation.

Contrary to past trends, countries in the Global South are initiating much of the investment.

It is not clear whether a strategy is in place to ensure that part of the food produced by the rich food importers farms will be sold locally.

Essentially, the Middle East is left with two choices. “The region has to import. The question is, invest abroad or rely on the free market?” said Dr Eckart Woertz, program manager in economics at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

Stephen Marks looks at the latest rush by China and countries in the middle east to sign lease agreements in poor countries for agricultural production, and what this trend means in terms of food security and access to arable land for local populations.

South Korea has just leased half of all the arable land in Madagascar according to the Financial Times. This has stirred quite a debate in the Malagasy blogosphere about land sovereignty and economic development.

The Government is considering the purchase of farmland worth US$500 million (Dh1.8 billion) in Pakistan as part of a strategy to lower food import costs.