As Mideast investors make plans to pump cash into farm projects in the developing world, the head of the United Nations' food agency said he is discouraging them from making direct purchases of farmland to avoid local backlash or other controversy, which could cause the investment trend to dry up.

Sudan and Kuwait agreed today to enhance strategic economic partnership between the two countries especially in the field of agricultural investments.

A Kuwaiti delegation last week met with the Myanmar cabinet and industry officials to discuss investment in the agricultural sector.

As other countries have pushed their industrial bases thousands of miles offshore in search of resources and labor, China is doing the same thing with agriculture, expanding as far away as Africa in its effort to feed its people.

Ahmed Al Sadhan, General Manager of the National Office for Industrial Strategies, at the Ministry of Commerce, stressed a desire to maintain a low profile on the feasibility study, for fear that target countries might inflate the cost of farm-land in anticipation of investment.

Schroder Investment Management is planning to launch an Agricultural Land fund, aimed at exploiting the long term returns from agricultural land brought on by the growing demand on its use and productivity.

Dexion Capital prepares to raise $270 million for a private equity fund which will invest in land, and operate cattle and crop farms around the world.

The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization is expanding its Abu Dhabi office tenfold to broker deals with farmers in such areas as the Horn of Africa.

The Dubai-based think-tank Gulf Research Centre, in its food inflation report released last month, noted that agriculture production in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) countries is on the decline, and its exposure to unstable global food supplies would increase in the future. It called on the GCC to develop links with countries rich in arable land.

Recent attempts by Persian Gulf countries to invest in farmlands abroad to counter soaring inflation and guarantee long-term food security could prove to be a win-win situation in the short term for both the oil-rich region and its investment-hungry neighbors, but continued high oil prices may neutralize the gains in the long-run, say experts.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is in talks with Sudan and other countries to grow grains to meet its strategic food needs.

The expectation in Ukraine is that billions of dollars of fresh investment and agriculture reforms, namely sanctioning of agriculture land sales, could double or triple domestic grain production to 100-150 million tons levels in the long term.

Bahrain wants to invest in rice farmland in the Philippines, the world's top importer of the grain, in a move to boost food security as global food supplies become increasingly expensive, traders said on Wednesday.

Pakistan’s agriculture sector has the potential to cater to the food requirements of the GCC region, which spends over $200 billion on farm imports.

Rattled by rapidly rising global grain prices, China is looking at strategies to ensure long-term food security for its 1.3 billion people such as procuring farmland overseas and opposing the formation of any international grain price-fixing monopolies.

Inflation and the spectre of long-term food shortages have prompted the UAE Government to consider a new strategic investment – the purchase of large-scale farms in Pakistan and other countries.

Hedge funds and investment banks are swapping their Gucci for gumboots as they bet on rising food prices by buying farms.

From the California wine country to the Florida citrus groves and Montana ranches, a wave of Japanese investment is sweeping through American agriculture and food processing.