Radical economic, structural and social change may be spawned by growing demand for land in certain countries, and so may love affairs, says the World Bank.

People see the Chinese as moving into Africa, kicking poor farmers off their land, and growing food to be shipped back to China for domestic consumption. This seems unlikely, however, says Doug Saunders.

Citadel's Karim Sadek dismisses talk of land grabbing as an “academic concern”, saying “there should definitely be a priority for the produce to be sold on the local market, if there is a paying market for it”.

Runaway farmland and borderland giveaway deals need to be publicly scrutinized to ensure transparency (detect corruption and criminality) and to make certain that private interests (sweetheart deals) have not overtaken the public interest, or secret deals are not made to harm the Ethiopian national interest.

Human rights workers said risks to the rural poor over such deals are significant because they are regularly evicted to make way for foreign investors.

And now the bad news. FAO has taken a U-turn in its clear position on the race by food-importing countries and private companies to buy land overseas for domestic food and agriculture needs.

These issues will be central to the World Summit on Food Security to be held from November 16 through 18 at the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

"The motivation for South African farmers is simple," said Theo de Jager, Agri SA's deputy president, who helped negotiate the deal. "One in four farms must be redistributed in the next four or five years. So for new entrants into the sector and for those farmers who want to expand there is nowhere to go."

Swedish company Black Earth Farming (BEF) since 2006 has bought 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) of Russian farmland after the government finally allowed land to be privatised after decades of state ownership.

Private equity used to stay away from anything to do with agriculture, put off by the uncontrollable risks of bad climate and natural disasters. And yet in the last three years some big funds have been launched in the agribusiness space, and they are busy trying different ways of mitigating the risks.

Foreign investors in overseas farmland “should not have a right to export” during a food crisis in the host country, a government-backed think tank is to propose on Thursday, in the first code of conduct to address the so-called land grabbing trend.

The issue of food security is getting higher on Riyadh’s priority list.

Cambodia's traditional sectors are foundering in the wake of the global financial crisis, but the Kingdom's farmlands could bring billions from Middle Eastern countries seeking food security.

Rich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies.

The project dreamt of transforming dunes of Cholistan into farmlands by contracting out vast tracts to private companies who were supposed to vanguard a corporate farming revolution. But the companies involved are disillusioned, with one foot already out the door.

Foreign ownership of agricultural land, once a relatively innocuous regulatory area, has come under scrutiny in recent years as state and federal lawmakers have sought to impose tighter restrictions by passing new laws or amending existing ones.

The CSSF has put an end to a year-long dispute between small shareholders and Socfin's main shareholders, the Fabri family and French billionaire Vincent Bolloré: the 689,337 shares they not control between them will be bought back at €32.50 per share. This will take Socfin off the stock market at a time when it is the target of fierce criticism from a major Norwegian pension fund. It was also the end of an era for the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.

Two prominent union leaders who were not present when the Salala Rubber Corporation buildings were set on fire have been jailed as retaliation for their efforts to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement for the plantation’s contract workers.

Recent farmland purchases by Chinese, Middle Eastern, and other foreign government investors have raised concerns about food exports being prioritized over domestic consumption.

A potential large-scale rice farming company in the Philippines will be sending a delegation to Papua New Guinea in November this year to evaluate the country’s potential for large-scale rice farming in Central Province.

A claim circulating on social media that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has sold off 17 million hectares of farmland to US corporations is baseless.

American pension fund giant TIAA sold its Southern Riverina farming aggregation between Wagga Wagga and Albury in southern NSW to local Australian farmers after more than a decade of ownership.

The Oakland Institute, independent policy think tank based in the US, in a recent report said the compact between Sri Lanka and the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) could potentially shift millions of hectares of land in the country into private control

GAHP aims to create a holistic and commercial agricultural ecosystem by developing an advanced modern value chain over approximately 15,600 hectares of arable land

Sime Darby, the world’s biggest oil palm planter by land holdings, is considering exiting its palm and rubber operations in Liberia

Singapore-listed commodity trader Wilmar International Ltd says it will start producing soybeans on 10,000 ha in Russia’s Far East, with possibility of eventually expanding to 600,000 ha

There are signs that Brazil’s overvalued farmland may continue to face further contested land risks, especially if Brazilian prosecutors continue to analyze investments that lack clear land title.

Harvard's portfolio is still vast, including farms in Australia, South Africa and Brazil, as well as vineyards in California and timberland in Eastern Europe and throughout Central and South America, according to tax documents and other filings.

For the first time, plaintiffs from Cambodia have filed a class-action lawsuit against a Thai company after they were forcibly removed from their homes to make way for a sugarcane plantation

Unprocessed Lao farm products raised and grown by Vietnamese investors in the 10 Lao provinces that share a border with Vietnam will enjoy tariff and value-added tax exemptions when exported to Vietnam.