Even before Lu Xianfeng completed the $280 million purchase of Australia's largest dairy farm in April 2016, the Chinese billionaire was looking to sell. In a messy proposal, Mr Lu planned to offload his holding in the historic VDL to a Chinese listed vehicle he controlled.

Indonesian court helps to tear aside the veil of secrecy under which huge corporations operate in UK-linked tax havens

Bonnefield Financial, a farmland investment company based in Ottawa, announced this week that it has acquired about 6,500 acres of lush Dufferin County potato fields in what it called one of the largest farmland transactions in Canadian history.

A state-affiliated Kuwaiti company is set to join a growing list of entities from the oil-rich Gulf looking at investments in Asian agricultural land.

The threat posed to agriculture by environmental hazards is now so great that it could wipe as much as £5 trillion off the value of the world’s farm land, equipment and stock in any one year, a heavyweight study is warning.

Mr Massimov said Kazakhstan was negotiating an agreement with China to fund farming projects in Kazakhstan. “We are not giving China any land. The land code forbids it. But if we have a buyer [for crops], be it China or Arabia, then let’s sell,” he said.

A clause in the 2023 budget states that "it is expected that large parcels of unutilised/unproductively used lands will be leased out on long-term basis to grow exportable crops"

Pressure is mounting on Australia's superannuation funds to invest in agricultural land as investors protest about the industry's decision not to try and buy Australia's largest landholder S Kidman & Co.

The World Bank has backed the controversial practice of countries selling large tracts of agricultural land to overseas investors but is urging vendors to demand much more to increase their farming productivity and peoples’ livelihoods.

Abu Dhabi is preparing to launch a large-scale agricultural project in Sudan to develop more than 70,000 acres of land as part of the oil-rich Gulf emirate's efforts to secure food supplies.

The Japanese government is drawing up plans to finance investments in agricultural production in developing countries, in the latest sign of nervousness about food security among countries that import agricultural commodities.

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 world faces a permanent food crisis and global instability unless countries act now to feed a surging population by doubling agricultural output, a report drafted for ministers of the Group of Eight nations has warned.

Unity state, where Philippe Heilberg, a US businessman, says he has secured a huge tract of arable land, is inaccessible even by south Sudan’s standards. Apart from AK-47 assault rifles, it is deprived of most of the trappings of the modern world.

Alarmed by exporting countries’ trade restrictions, importing countries have realised that their dependence on the international food market makes them vulnerable not only to an abrupt surge in prices but, more crucially, to an interruption in supplies.

A net-zero land rush is sweeping the country, and both locals and wealthy “green lairds” are trying to buy in

Sudan is seeking to attract at least $1bn of capital for its agricultural sector from Arab and Asian investment groups, which are turning to Africa in search of new food supplies as their governments try to manage the impact of commodity price inflation.

Investors in farmland are targeting countries with weak laws, buying arable land on the cheap and failing to deliver on promises of jobs and investments, according to the draft of a report by the World Bank.

The UN and the World Bank are walking a tightrope in drawing up a code of conduct for farmland deals as they do not want to undermine investor confidence. Campaigners call such "win-win" codes "a nonsense".

KKR said that the company planned to build or acquire up to a further 30 large-scale farms over the next few years.

China has said it will not join the growing trend of outsourcing food production by investing in overseas farmland, particularly in Africa, expressing doubts that such deals could improve its food security.

Saudi Arabia is putting $800m into a new public company that will invest in overseas agricultural projects. The move signals a large step-up in Riyadh’s efforts to outsource supply for the kingdom’s food needs.

A US businessman backed by former CIA and state department officials says he has secured a vast tract of fertile land in south Sudan from the family of a notorious warlord.

"They [Daewoo] have prospected for land and now the central government is waiting for the prospecting reports,” the Malagasy land reform ministry told the FT. Critics said the welfare of Malagasy people and global food security would be better served by islanders being helped to manage their own farms. They stressed the trickle-down effect of Daewoo’s plan would be marginal and noted the company’s focus on exporting food from a country in which about 600,000 people rely on relief from the United Nations World Food Programme.

Angola, one of the world's fastest-growing economies, has launched an ambitious plan to exploit both its fertile soils and high global food prices to attract $6bn (€4.3bn, £3.4bn) in agriculture investments over the next five years.

Dubai-based Abraaj Capital, one of the Middle East’s largest private equity companies, has been quietly buying farmland in Pakistan as part of plans by the United Arab Emirates to increase food security and to damp inflation.

One of the world’s largest palm oil producers, First Resources, appears to have secretly controlled a network of companies that have been clearing rainforests in Indonesia for more than a decade, an investigation by The Gecko Project has found.

Birhanu Fikade of "The Reporter" sat down with Atkyelesh G.M. Persson (PhD) to learn about her findings on large scale FDI that failed to deliver the desired results in Ethiopia

Saudi officials I have spoken to seem to be aware of the minefields their schemes could ignite.

Peter Costello, the former treasurer of Australia, revealed Wednesday he was working with an investment fund that planned to inject US$600 million into Cambodia’s agricultural sector. The projects will cover a vast area, about 100,000 hectares.