Australians are entitled to test and scrutinise the benefits of foreign acquisitions to ensure they are in our national interest and, importantly, safeguard Australia’s role in global food security.

The editors have involved a highly diverse group of expert researchers, who review the pro- and anti-investment arguments, geopolitics, the role of capitalist investors, the environmental contexts and the political implications of, and reasons for, leasing millions of hectares in sub-Saharan Africa.

Politicians and economists say that the Australian public is only worked up about foreign ownership of agricultural land because the community is misinformed. This drives the belief that a register of foreign land holdings will calm everyone's anxiety. Given that Queensland has had such a register for 20 years, and that disquiet about foreign ownership still resonates among Queenslanders, this means that something else is at play.

The recent increasing land acquisitions by transnational corporations (TNCs) is causing conflicts among farmers, pastoralists and other land users in Ghana, and have the potential of leading to the loss of arable land by smallholders, reveals a study.

"Today, all patriotic Africans are weeping when they see how African governments are giving out African lands, dispossessing the African people of their ancestral land, for practically next to nothing, in the name of attracting foreign investors!", writes Abba Mahmood

Over the last two months, the price of corn has been climbing. On July 19th, it exceeded $8 per bushel for the first time, taking the world into a new food price terrain. With heat and drought still smothering the Corn Belt, we may well see more all-time highs in coming weeks as the extent of crop damage becomes clearer.

Given the power imbalances at play, it is folly to assume that land-seekers will suddenly embrace, en masse, a set of voluntary rules promoting sustainable and equitable investor practices, says Michael Kugelman

Everyone seems to agree on the need for “investment” in agriculture to fight hunger and support rural development, but the focus is exclusively on investment funds and big business, and nothing about farmers. Is the term part of a disinformation campaign to serve the interests of only a few?

Investors are honing the focus of their cash on real assets including farmland, timber, mines and energy projects, which are less correlated to financial markets.

Drought conditions in much of the US this year could turn into a boon, rather than a bust, for institutional investors in farmland, timber and agricultural stocks.

Participants from various communities shared documented cases, stories and photos of how large-scale investments of local and foreign owned companies are displacing communities and how people oppose such type of investments.

Herakles says it will provide locals with steady work, roads and health care. But critics call the planned plantation, which would cover Fabe and at least 30 other forest villages in Cameroon, a land grab. Special report from Reuters.

The Canadian company Stevia Nutra Corporation announced that it has entered into a “Services Provision Agreement” with Ecologica Co. Ltd, a Cambodian agro-development company, to develop largescale stevia plantations in Cambodia

“The destruction and grabbing of resources from peasants and poor people have intensified and if we are to succeed in defending our land, territory and our very future, we need to come together and identify clearly the kind of Agrarian Reform we are looking for and the strategy for which we achieve it.”

The UAE is eying lands overseas in order to provide ongoing food supply to face the increase in the country’s population as the UAE imports steadily soared in the past few years, Ministry of Economy official said.

The AgriSol investment is a good case in justifying that in Tanzania it is the state which grabs on behalf of the investors as opposed in other areas where land is acquired illegally.

If, as our analysis suggests, there is a need to transition the people’s demand for land from ‘land reform’ and ‘land tenure security’ to something else, then ‘land sovereignty’ as a framework is worth considering.

The land grab phenomenon in Sudan...resembles a fata morgana, a mirage in the desert which completely distorts the object on which it is based

Almost 70% of all concluded and planned Saudi investments in offshore agriculture are in Africa, according to a new report from Standard Bank

As the World Bank held its Annual Conference on Land and Poverty in April, campaigners accused it once again of facilitating and legitimising 'land grabs' that harm local communities.

"Africa will be more food insecure if these investments go to other parts of the world and Africa has to turn to those places to buy food," according to Dr Ousmane Badiane of IFPRI

This paper from TNI examines a range of positive alternative investments which strengthen the right to food, re-valorise agricultural work, and build up ecological capital.

Felda Global plans to use the bulk of its proceeds to snap up more plantations in Southeast Asia and Africa and boost its refining and market business in its bid to become a peer to Archer-Daniel Midlands and Cargill by 2020.

India is among the top 10 nations to acquire land in both domestic and transnational deals, according to a report released this month by the Washington-based World Watch Institute

The company’s expansion plans -- 50% of IPO proceeds will be used to develop plantations in vulnerable areas in Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere -- are likely to trigger NGO protests and conflicts with local communities.

At an agriculture investment summit in London on Wednesday, leading U.S. and European pensions funds said few assets remained immune from whipsawing markets, prompting institutions to look at farmland.

Farmland is "an obvious no-brainer choice for most pension funds," according to Savills director of residential research Yolande Barnes.

Llamamiento común de mas de 60 organizaciones de la sociedad civil

Déclaration commune de plus de 60 organisations de la société civile

Joint statement released by more than 60 civil society organisations against the role of pension funds and other financial instutions in land grabbing