At the Annual General Meeting of shareholders in Luxembourg, civil society denounce SOCFIN's self-regulatory practices, which prevent the resolution of land, social and environmental conflicts.

Palm oil giant Socapalm has finally handed over three sacred sites on 3 hectares of land but this is far short of the 30 hectares that the Mbonjo community is demanding.

A fifth of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, are operating illegally inside forest areas that are off-limits to commercial agricultural activity, a new report from Greenpeace shows.

A new report by Bread for all, Alliance Sud, and the German Network for Tax Justice has accused Belgian-French multinational Socfin, which operates rubber and palm oil plantations across West Africa, of shifting profits from Africa to Switzerland. The use of “transfer pricing” to avoid taxation is common among multinationals operating in Africa, depriving low-income governments of badly needed revenue.

On the eve of an annual gathering of public development banks, 280 groups from 70 countries sign letter slamming them for bankrolling the expansion of industrial agriculture.

Indonesian government have alleged that permits underpinning a multi-billion dollar plantation project in Papua were falsified. The land is being opened up by investors whose identity is hidden behind anonymously owned companies, as part of a plan to develop an oil palm plantation almost twice the size of London in the remote region.

Industrial agriculture and financial sectors are hand-in-hand worsening climate change and then profiting from it, with an unprecedented number of land grabs over the last eight years.

The story of the defaulted company Mriya Agro Holding shows what risks investors and creditors are willing to take in the pursuit of profit in Ukraine’s agribusiness.

Investments by the World Bank's IFC in financial intermediaries are alleged to have financed 'land grabs' in South East Asia and violations of indigenous people's rights in Honduras.

"The Chinese want a secure food supply, and they're coming into New Zealand to do that, by the look of it," a local farm union official says

Two prominent union leaders who were not present when the Salala Rubber Corporation buildings were set on fire have been jailed as retaliation for their efforts to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement for the plantation’s contract workers.

Allegations of illegal activity and land-grabbing against Indonesia’s second-largest palm oil company continue to mount as a new report reveals the firm’s violations appear to be more extensive than initially documented.

The World Bank’s independent watchdog, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), has finalized its investigation into a complaint filed five years ago, alleging grave human rights violations by communities living near the Salala Rubber Corporation in Liberia.

In Kenya’s lush Thika region, stealing pineapples is a de facto capital crime. At least nine men have allegedly been killed by security guards employed by Del Monte, the world’s largest producer of pineapples.

Between 10 and 15 million acres of tropical forests, an area larger than Switzerland, has been razed in Southeast Asia alone since the 1990s to feed our hunger for rubber.

A grievance assessment mission commissioned by Belgian oil palm and rubber company Socfin has been rejected by communities affected by the company’s operations in several African and Asian countries.

Over 100 organisations denounce RSPO during its 19th general meeting for greenwashing environmental destruction, labour and human rights abuses and land grabbing by the palm oil industry

On the eve of their shareholder meetings, more than 40 organisations sign a collective statement about the situation in numerous rubber and oil palm plantations run by the Socfin group, with the financial participation of the Bolloré group

The Indonesian police in South Kalimantan province should drop criminal defamation charges against a blogger who interviewed indigenous Dayak leaders regarding land dispute with PT Jhonlin Agro Raya oil palm plantation, said Human Rights Watch.

The Indonesian minister in charge of investments, Luhut Pandjaitan, has declared there will be no new permits for oil palm plantations in the country’s Papua region. Activists are skeptical about the minister’s U-turn, given that Luhut has been the government’s most vocal defender of palm oil industry.

A high court of Guatemala has found that two palm oil companies used the criminal justice system to criminalise indigenous Maya Q'eqchi' land defender Abelino Chub Caalun without any evidence

Some estimates now bring the total of Ukrainian farmland controlled by foreign companies to over 2.2 million ha.

The approach taken by Ethiopia and India to reaching development goals and fulfilling environmental promises by leasing or buying large tracts of fertile land affects land, water and indigenous people.

Karuturi Global Ltd, the Indian multinational that made its name in the global cut flower industry and recently acquired more than 300,000 ha in Ethiopia to produce food, is continuing its painful and massive decline.

The land grab in Cambodia is creating an underclass of landless citizens who have no stake in society and nothing left to lose. Recourse to the law is not an option.

“This so-called joint venture smacks of land-grabbing and conflict of interest on the part of President Aquino’s political lieutenant in the Gulf.” – Danilo Ramos, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas

An interview with Mamy Rakotondrainibe, an activist with the Collectif pour la Défense des Terres Malgaches, about the struggle against land grabbing in Madagascar.

“What we are going to do is develop a statement of guiding principles for African nations entering into contracts with foreign powers for the utilization of land and resources,” Dr. Daniels told The Final Call.

Agro-Ecological Investment Management, a private equity and real estate asset management company based in London, will launch its first fund in the first quarter of 2010, with a target of between $50m and $60m.

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