Unrest flared in Oromiya for several months until early this year over plans to allocate farmland surrounding the regional capital for development.

Global investors have spent more than $90 billion buying agricultural lands the size of Finland in deals criticized by rights groups for displacing small farmers, according to research published on Tuesday.

Police arrest 11 farmers from Pyrzyce where 60% of farmland has already been sold off to foreign buyers. The farmers are accused of blocking tenders connected with the foreign sale of farming estates.

The world's largest palm oil trader faces accusations against unresolved land grabbing and human rights issues by its concessions in Asia and Africa, but says it stands by its sustainability policy.

The palm oil industry's repeated failure to keep its promises illustrates why global initiatives to achieve 'sustainable palm oil' must place communities centre-stage, writes FPP

"My particular case is not just to intimidate me, but to silence all further reports on [Karuturi] and his company's operations in Africa," Acharya told CPJ.

Investment plans include a new dairy farm of 5,000 cows and eventually another farm of 20,000 cows that will be the biggest in Egypt.

Liberia's Jogbahn Clan and other communities are resisting the corporate takeover of their land and they are winning. All over Africa people are sending a clear message to their governments; stop selling Africa to corporations.

Des villageois ont fait reculer de puissantes multinationales, et cela se passe au Liberia.

Oil palm cultivation has wrecked habitats in South-East Asia. We must avoid a rerun if the crop takes off in its native Africa

Concerns mount among civil society groups that an agriculture project in Mozambique, which Tokyo is pushing through as one of its key projects in Africa, may end up depriving local farmers of their land.

The seeds of the next conflict are not diamonds but something far more valuable to local people - farmland.

Since 2011, World Bank investments in large palm oil companies have virtually stopped, but it has backed off from applying the same approach to other crops, although the risks to local communities and indigenous peoples from land grabs from other agribusinesses are not much different.

In the last five years, land concessions totaling tens of thousands of hectares have been granted to private companies for industrial sugarcane production in Cambodia.

The world’s governments approved new guidelines for rules on land use on Friday to protect the poor and fight hunger, but aid groups said they were too weak to stop large-scale land grabs by big business in underdeveloped countries.

The 19th century had the Great Scramble for Africa, when developed nations raced for several decades to lay claim to new territories and their riches. This century may yet be known as the Great Selloff of Africa.

Corporations and bankers do not believe in farming as a way of life; they believe in farming as a very profitable business that they control. Their goal is not to improve family farming in Africa, but to eradicate it.

Representatives of Saudi group Agro invest, a public-private agricultural investment company, are now in Brazil seeking partnerships for producing and exporting grain and poultry.

In Merauke, over 1000 people marched to the regional legislature to present their demands, and rallied against the failure of Special Autonomy to protect indigenous people, particularly in regard to the planned 80 million-hectare Merauke Food Estate.

Such huge transfers of agricultural power must surely come with consequences that are worthy of closer regulatory inspection.

Ethiopia’s strategy of leasing farmland to foreign investors is not without critics.

In many parts of the developing world, legislation allowing compulsory acquisition of land in the public interest has been used to make land available not for schools or hospitals, but for commercial projects – in the mining, petroleum or agriculture sectors.

Southeast Asian countries took big steps towards formalizing food-for-oil deals with Gulf states at a June meeting between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

"Our message is clear: it is not up to the G8 to set development strategies and programmes for Africa."

High on Chongqing's shopping list is more than 333,000 hectares of farmland, which Huang said would reduce the city's dependence, for example, on imported edible oil.

Most Chinese investment in African agriculture is concentrated in southern Africa: Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi and, increasingly, Angola.

ESCR-Net has written to President Bio about the human rights violations against members of the Malen Affected Landowners and Users Association in connection with industrial scale palm oil operations by Société Financière des caoutchoucs (Socfin Group).

US Supreme Court rules that the World Bank's IFC can be sued. This may create new legal liability for development finance institutions whose funding harms local communities.

Last week representatives of communities, indigenous peoples and NGOs met in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia to discuss deforestation and the rights of forest peoples.

Joan Baxter profiles Indian national Chinnakannan Sivasankaran and his quest to make his Siva Group into the largest player in the production of palm oil by leasing land and establishing oil palm plantations from Papua New Guinea to Sierra Leone to South America.