Is big-business investment in global farmlands the way to build a sustainable, food-secure future? Or is it evidence of a new speculative bubble?

Pour Oxfam France, il faut surtout agir sur les questions commerciales, laissées en plan par le rapport de la Banque mondiale.

Black Earth Farming a Swedish firm which controls more than 300,000 hectares of Russian farmland, has reported yields of some crops down by more than a half thanks to Russia's "scorching" heat

Arab nations are considering launching an ambitious strategy involving investment of nearly $65 billion in the next 20 years to expand their farming sector and ensure food for their fast-growing population.

Africa's untapped agriculture potential make it an ideal partner for resource-constrained Middle Eastern countries that seek to improve their food security, a new report from Standard Chartered Bank said.

Un Collection Repères par Pain pour le Prochain et Action de Carème

"In the age of derivatives and evaporating valuations, farmland is gold with a cash flow."

Saudi Arabia is attempting to strengthen its position in what seems certain to be a growing competition for food among the nations of the Middle East.

Developed nations attempt to secure supplies of food and biofuels to mitigate the impacts of climate change on the food and energy security of their populations, Khadija Sharife writes in this week’s Pambazuka News

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi calls it the “new feudalism.” Groups representing peasant farmers call it “land grabs.” The United Nations literature dispersed at this week's UN food summit in Rome calls it “direct foreign investment.”

PAVA offers its shares to Gulf investors for food supplies. It will start road show to UAE and Saudi in October.

A new breed of colonialism is rampaging across the world, with rich nations buying up the natural resources of developing countries that can ill afford to sell. Some staggering deals have already been done, but angry locals are now trying to stop the landgrabs

The social consequences of these land grabs are significant.

La FAO s’inquiète des violations des droits des paysans que ces accaparements de terres peuvent entraîner, et s’interroge sur la participation des populations locales aux bénéfices générés. Mais elle y voit avant tout une perspective de développement. Au profit de qui ?

FARM vous propose une note de lecture en français du rapport de l'IIED, qui reprend les principales conclusions et les complète par des détails sur certains contrats d’achat ou de vente de terre signés.

Tymoshenko is pushing through with promises to provide Libya 100,000 ha of Ukrainian farmland to produce its own wheat

Women in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have turned back officials trying to implement a forced farming program on their land, but remain concerned about their property rights, according to farmers there.

Non-governmental organizations and activists in Europe are denouncing a wave of land acquisitions in Egypt, Sudan, Cameroon, Senegal, Mozambique and elsewhere in Africa as a new form of colonialism.

The European Union is coercing some West African governments into allowing European-based fishing companies to deplete West Africa’s fishing stocks in a new "food colonialism" that is now taking place between rich and poor countries around the world, according to British author George Monbiot.

Sub-Saharan African countries have of late become the target of a new form of investment that is strongly reminiscent of colonialism: investors from both industrialised and emerging economies buy or lease large tracts of farm land across the continent, either to guarantee their own food provisions or simply as yet another business.

Le premier constructeur naval sud-coréen, Hyundai Heavy Industries, vient d'annoncer sa participation à l'effort national pour sécuriser les ressources alimentaires du pays. HHI vient d'acquérir 67,6% des parts de Khorol Zerno, propriétaire et exploitant de 10000 hectares de terres agricoles dans le grand est russe, dans la région de Khorolski.

Vom Geschäftemachen versteht Madagaskars Präsident Marc Ravalomanana etwas. Schließlich hat sich der 59-Jährige vom radelnden Joghurt-Verkäufer zum Chef des Firmenimperiums Tiko empor gewirtschaftet. Das Geschäft mit Milch hat ihn zum reichsten Mann der Tropeninsel gemacht - schon bevor er 2002 in den Präsidentenpalast einzog.

Promotional piece for investing in farmland

The global food and financial crises have combined to create a new form of colonialism in which countries short of resources and corporations desperate for profits are buying up arable land in emerging nations, NGOs say. The non-governmental organisations have expressed concern at this "global land grab," which they say is threatening the survival of rural livelihoods in some parts of the world.

The Chinese government is more and more worried over the control that overseas firms are exercising over a good portion of China’s food supply, and there is even some thought that the recent inflation might have been triggered by foreign food giants as they have expanded into every corner of China’s agriculture.

Big Money from Wall St. to the Middle East are on the hunt for farmland. Canada, especially Ontario, stands to profit but will the costs be too great?

There is growing interest in agricultural land, which Bramdean Asset Management is looking at and believes has huge potential

Communities living close to oil palm plantations run by PHC in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo are laying claim to just over 58,000 ha of land, and are demanding access to the company’s land titles to determine the boundaries of its concessions.

Les communautés riveraines des plantations de la société Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC) au nord-est de la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC) revendiquent un peu plus de 58 000 hectares de terres et veulent accéder aux titres fonciers de la société pour connaître les limites de ses concessions.

Some of the world's largest pension funds bet big on Brazilian farmland. Communities, and the climate, are paying the price