Circle of Blue have put together an interactive map of land grabs by country and by sector.

An estimated 70.2 million hectares of agricultural land worldwide have been sold or leased to private and public investors since 2000, according to new research conducted for our Vital Signs Online service.

At least one person is being killed in an environmental dispute around the world each week as the battle for land, natural resources and forests becomes increasingly violent, a report said on Tuesday.

Do governments and parliaments in investor home countries have any responsibility in respect of the behaviour of their investors abroad? What should they and international regulators do, if anything?

Singaporean and other foreign traders are taking advantage of a loophole in Thai laws to purchase land suitable for paddy fields and starting up rice-trading houses in Thailand.

Karuturi, which has 300,000 ha in Ethiopia, is now targeting the DRC, Tanzania, Mozambique, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

The distinctive feature of these land deals that has attracted attention is the speed of the acquisitions, the transparency (lack thereof) of the terms and the scale of the acquisitions and implied investment.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is launching a call for proposal for all interested researchers and academics in its Multinational Working Group on a theme titled: “Land grabs and food sovereignty in Africa”.

Concerns about land grabbing stem from a desire to hold the government accountable when the drive to make Thailand the Kitchen of the World ends up destroying ecological systems, small farmers' livelihoods, and our food security.

A pension fund(!) has seeded(!) a new company (i.e., not a fund!) that will invest its own assets as well as those of peers(!) in actual farms(!) in the developed and developing world!

Six foreign-owned companies are currently trying to secure over 1 million hectares (about 2.5 million acres) of land for the production of palm oil in the country's forested southern zone, according to a coalition of environmental organisations.

The science and environment author discusses a growing global threat

Obama announces G8's New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition and reiterates support for the "process and pilot use of the Principles of Responsible Agricultural Investment"

A group of foreign financiers is examining the possibility of investing up to €50m in Irish dairy production, it has been revealed.

Financial services group TIAA-CREF said it is partnering with Canadian and European money managers to form a $2 billion global farmland investing company to capitalize on the growing demand for grains and other agricultural products.

Land is the missing element at next month's big UN sustainable development summit known as Rio+20, where nations of the world will meet June 20-22 with the goal of setting a new course to ensure the survival and flourishing of humanity.

Indian-listed Karuturi Global, which has leased land in Ethiopia for commercial farming, plans to export cereals, sugar and edible oil to South Sudan and Kenya upon completing cultivation in 2014.

BIDCO project wreaks environmental havoc, hunger, and human rights abuse in Kalangala

A new report from the Oakland Institute examines a controversial land investment deal in Sierra Leone. Pambazuka News caught up with its Policy Director to find out why the report has attracted so much attention.

With the purchase of nearly 15,000ha of land in Jerramungup last month, the Qatar-based Hassad Food Company now owns 250,000ha of farmland in Austalia

On the evening of April 24, following a daylong rally against large-scale land investment deals in poor nations, the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan became the venue for a 30-minute light show against land grabs in Africa.

A global food crisis and rapid population growth are making farmland an increasingly attractive investment. Holly Black looks at the options.

Investment managers meeting at the Waldorf Astoria in New York said rising US farmland prices were making it harder to find quality land and high returns, and a lot of capital flow is moving to developing nations.

The global rush to buy farmland continues, and international investors are focusing on the poorest countries with weak land-rights security for deals, according to a report by the Land Matrix research group.

Exploring the fundamental data flaws in the Land Matrix dataset

An international coalition of NGOs and research groups has published the world's largest database of land grab deals struck since 2000, offering unprecedented detail on who's investing, where and what for.

Some CSOs are using the media to paint an inaccurate and distorted picture of the World Bank Group’s work and they are questioning the motives of the conference, says the World Bank's Klaus Deininger.

More than a quarter of all the meat produced worldwide is now eaten in China, and the country’s 1.35 billion people are hungry for more. In 1978, China’s meat consumption of 8 million tons was one third the U.S. consumption of 24 million tons. But by 1992, China had overtaken the United States as the world’s leading meat consumer—-and it has not looked back since. Now China’s annual meat consumption of 71 million tons is more than double that in the United States. With U.S. meat consumption falling and China’s consumption still rising, the trajectories of these two countries are determining the shape of agriculture around the planet.

The World Bank continues to facilitate land-grabbing in poor and developing countries around the world, according to new research released on Monday.

Food shortages and rural deprivation exacerbated by World Bank policy, says NGO ahead of land and poverty conference