Qatar will make more investments overseas to produce key agricultural and horticultural commodities to ensure food supply security at home and will simultaneously focus on raising self-sufficiency in local produce.

The firm also aims to conclude as many as six deals by year end, including in Latin America and is scouting Africa to set up joint ventures or buy firms to develop land.

Hassad Food plans to invest all over the world. “Latin America, Asia, you name it,” says Al Hajri, “Where we invest, we make profit. If Qatar is in need of that production, Hassad has the pleasure to sell to Qatar at no special rate.”

A Hassad Food advisor explained to Emboff September 3 that the company tailors its involvement in each country to the preferences of its partner in order to minimize local "backlash" to the company's actions.

In four years, Hassad Foods has accumulated 255,000 hectares of agricultural land with the aim of producing 165,000 tonnes of grain and 100,000 lambs annually.

“We are looking for opportunities where we can work with partners owning or running farmlands and having expansion plans. We do not want to take away the land of the poor,” the chairman of Hassad Food says.

Over the past few years Hassad Australia has amassed a property portfolio of 14 major wheat and sheep farms or clusters of properties across four states, covering 287,000ha.

Hassad Food Co., the agricultural investment arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, plans to invest $500 million in India after buying Bush Foods Overseas Ltd.

Hassad Australia chief executive Tom McKeon said the company employed people from local communities, supported local businesses and paid tax. The company owns 11 farms over 250,000ha in Australia, including three in WA.

We are interested in the opportunity of farming in Nigeria and we are happy that the government is facilitating that process," says Hassad Food Operations and Asset Management executive director Andrew Goodman.

Qatar-based Hassad Food has initiated its investment in Australian ­agriculture with the purchase of the prized Kaladbro Estate in far western Victoria.

One must ask if arrangements such as those promoted by Hassad Foods of Qatar are really that much better.

Hassad plans to spend $US350 million ($318 million) in Australia to secure food supplies for Qatar, which imports 95 per cent of its food.

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.

Ghana Investment Promotion Centre is seeking investments from Qatar to the tune of $700mn, including a major deal with Hassad Food

"Hassad [Food] has innovated by considering investments in overseas agribusinesses rather than only purchasing land in countries with questionable property rights, and where the indigenous population may not benefit from such purchases," writes the US embassy in Doha

Qatar's Hassad Food is eyeing a stake in Russia's PAVA and has signed a deal potentially worth $1 billion to develop land in Sudan as it looks to grow through acquisitions and joint ventures, its chairman said on Thursday.

A senior official of the Brazilian embassy in Doha says Qatar Investment Authority, specifically Hassad Foods, has expressed interest in acquiring land in Brazil.

Officials from Hassad Food arrived in Turkey to make investments aiming to slake the country’s basic agricultural requirements as the small peninsula lacks sufficient arable land

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.

Tom McKeon was most recently CEO of Hassad Australia, the Doha-based Qatar Investment Authority’s food and agribusiness subsidiary.

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund agricultural company launched Hassad Australia last year, aimed at ensuring that livestock and grain needs for Qatar, from Australian farmland, are met.

Belarus has fertile land for agriculture and Hassad Food is evaluating different features in such markets like ease of laws

Egypt's Prime Minister received Sheikh Nasser bin Mohamed Al Hageri, the head of the Qatari Hassad Foodstuff Company who is currently visiting Egypt to explore agricultural investments.

Australian business council wants Qatar to invest more in food production in Australia, similar to what Qatar's Hassad Foods is pursuing.

"I understand Moldova has a favourable climate and good farmland, which Qatar’s Hassad Food could possibly look at for opportunities," says Qatar's Deputy Premier

Meanwhile, the government is planning to launch an initial public offering for the shares of Hassad Food, the strategic food investment arm of Qatar Investment Authority, in order to list it on the local bourse, according to Doha-based Al Arab daily.

A Qatari Government-owned company is buying up prime agricultural land in South Australia at well above market rates and is forcing farmers to sign confidentiality agreements.

The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has launched a venture aiming to invest in food production worldwide focusing on the acquisition and development of existing agribusiness companies rather than the lease of large tracts of farmland.

While Qatar has adopted a more indirect approach to its foreign agricultural investment and increased domestic production of some food products, it is unlikely that it will be able to significantly reduce its dependence on foreign food supplies in the long term.