"During my research trips in Africa, I came across posters against the land grab deals," Liberti told IPS. "One said: ‘Future generations will damn your graves, because you did not leave them any land.’"

US groups call on Harvard to reconsider its institutional participation in agricultural land investments and to look for more just and sustainable ways to support its educational and research missions.

A policy paper will next week be presented to the annual World Bank conference on land and poverty in Washington DC in the United States, which focuses on the confrontation between peasant producers and investors in the Mozambican province of Zambezia.

Pakistan has announced an investment policy which is encouraging the corporate sector to engage vast lands in all four provinces of Pakistan on very easy terms.

China, the world's most populous country and biggest consumer of grain, should expand its farming overseas to ensure enough food for its people because of limited land and low productivity at home, agriculture experts said on Wednesday.

The G77 and China have alerted the UN General Assembly to the emerging trend of “massive acquisition by large investors from developed countries of farm land in developing countries”. The farm land is being bought not for food security, but for the speculative purpose of future agricultural production, which thus creates a significant added burden to food insecurity globally.

The world's agricultural system is changing from one in which land is owned by farmers or communities and cultivated by farmers to one where corporations have the sole say in what gets cultivated where and who will profit.

How corporate transparency encourages secrecy - the counterproductive role of many NGO's.

Around 400 companies submit applications for licenses for farmland in Ethiopia each month with a growing number of them from Europe.

Water grabbing refers to situations where powerful actors take control of valuable water resources for their own benefit, depriving local communities whose livelihoods often depend on these resources and ecosystems.

THE NATIONAL Food Security Bill awaiting parliamentary approval should be backed by simultaneous plan to improve essential agricultural linkages as the demand is expected to exceed supply by 2020.

A new exploratory report from the Stockholm International Water Institute investigates how the current surge in land acquisitions and investments by foreign countries, sovereign wealth funds, private corporations and domestic investors will affect transboundary water management, an area where current knowledge is sparse.

Gaia Vince reviews "The Land Grabbers", a new book by Fred Pearce

Wall Street has found its place on the farm. Prospects for profits tied to increasing food production are driving a proliferation of new niche investment vehicles focused on agriculture.

State-owned food giant COFCO Corp is likely to pursue more overseas acquisitions of sugar companies, its Chairman Ning Gaoning said on the sidelines of the ongoing National People's Congress in Beijing Thursday.

The governments in the Gulf region are investing heavily in outside farmland acquisitions and leases besides injecting money into the domestic food production industry, according to an expert ahead of a major agriculture expo.

Beidahuang State Farm Group has started to plant soybeans on 13,000 hectares of farmland in Argentina, while COFCO says it is looking for opportunities to invest in Argentina and Brazil for grains production and in Australia for sugar production.

In the run up to Rio+20, the United Nation Environment Programme Foresight Panel has flagged the adverse impact of the "new land rush" as a cause of concern.

Up to 90% of sub-Saharan Africa's land area is currently untitled. Without legal owners, this land falls to the state, which makes it easy to lease to foreign investors

IMF/World Bank paper looks at how foreign investors are buying up farmland in developing countries.

The scariest aspect of this unfolding phenomenon is that despite the foreseeable terrible consequences, the appetite among the rich countries to own a piece of this developing-country fertile land continues to grow, turning to an ugly competition.

Debates around farmland acquisition have focused mostly on how the phenomenon is playing out in the Global South. Much less attention has been paid to large-scale acquisitions of farmland in wealthier countries like Canada.

In Myanmar, the issue of land-grabbing has been raised by land rights groups urging changes to two land laws currently before parliament: the Farmland Bill and Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Land Management Bill.

BASF interviews Prof. Dr. Harald von Witzke, International Agricultural Trade and Development Institute of the Humboldt University, Berlin

The recent rush to acquire farmland in order to meet rising global demands for food and fuel is putting African countries at risk of bearing costs of global resource scarcity, says a new study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

The growing insecurity and violence in Gambela, seen in the recent loss of human lives and attacks on government institutions, should be seen as a clear warning to investors about the dangers involved in large scale agricultural investments, says the Anywaa Survival Organisation.

Promoting agricultural development in Africa and addressing the world's food security challenges requires investing in farmers - not in farmland, says Lorenzo Cotula.

African officials have called for greater equity and fairness in trade with the GCC countries that use agricultural land in Africa to feed their populations while famines continue to ravage the continent.

Women, who are already compensating for rising food prices and energy costs with additional time and labor, are now further disadvantaged through land grabbing.

Communities without economic power that live off of land to which they do not “own” are devastated when their government transfers the property rights to wealthy outside interests, who exploit the natural resources.