Preliminary research indicates as much as 227 million hectares - about the size of Western Europe - may have been sold, leased or licensed in large-scale land deals since 2001.

As foreign investors descend on Africa to develop large-scale palm oil plantations, the survival of local people is being threatened as they lose control of the land and water on which they depend for their food production and livelihoods

Land and water grabs spell disaster for rural people and rivers

It's become known as the global land grab. More and more wealthy countries are buying up agricultural land in the developing world in at attempt to hedge against high food prices.

"We are in negotiations with several foreign investment funds that are interested in buying thousands of hectares of Romanian farmland,” says analyst with DTZ Echinox.

Il Corno d’Africa è afflitto dalla più grave tragedia umanitaria che la sua storia ricordi. Siccità e fame, 12 milioni di persone senza cibo né acqua. Ma il “neocolonialismo agricolo” procede indisturbato.

By Gang Gong Li, Gerry Albert Corpuz and Portnip Pakangcharap

Les affaires sont les affaires: des entreprises indiennes d’agroalimentaire sont prêtes à investir plus d’un milliard d’euros en Ethiopie, Tanzanie et Ouganda

Fear of unrest and hunger for profit are sparking massive acquisitions of farmland.

The government has not presented satisfactory and truthful explanations about its actions, let alone credible defense of its role as agency and facilitator of the abominable practices of farmland grabbing.

Two issues are bound to feature in New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser's talks in Beijing next week: New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra’s market power in the China domestic market and Chinese investment intentions within New Zealand.

Jim Rogers, the co-founder with George Soros of the Quantum hedge fund, is particularly bullish about agriculture saying that shortages in a range of agricultural products will produce strong prices not only in those commodities but also in farm land.

Restrictive legislation on the selling of land will continue to be null and void so long as foreigners can rent farm land -- the ‘leasing loophole’.

Mr Daniel Amelorku, District Chief Executive of South Tongu District in the Volta Region of Ghana said his district has provided 1,000 hectares of land to Global Agri-Development Company (GADCO) and would be expanded to 4,000 hectares within four years to achieve the target.

Australians do realise the value of what is being sold, a land agent and rural property specialist said, "but their hands are tied because they can't raise the money".

The first Africasia Sustainable Farming Fund will be investing in land across the Africasia region and in Sri Lanka to take advantage of the current post war economic boom in the country and the demand and shortfall for basic food crops in the region and globally, reports Apex Fund Services, a UK-based hedge fund

Over 100 women from seven continents joined the International Womens Alliance (IWA) which focused on landlessness and widespread land grabbing.

The most disturbing question here is: who should have powers to give 800,000 hectares to a foreigner under a 99-year lease arrangement, and under what procedures?

Pambazuka News spoke to Anuradha Mittal, Jeff Furman and Frederic Mousseau about what prompted their research on large-scale investments in land in Africa and what they discovered.

Pension funds may be one of the few classes of land grabbers that people can pull the plug on, by sheer virtue of the fact that it is their money.

The US Overseas Private Investment Corporation pours $150 million into fund targeting farmland acquisitions in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia

Thomas Mirow, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, advises the Ukraine, on behalf of foreign investors, to drop its moratorium on the sale of farmland to foreigners.

Today as the first ever G-20 agriculture meeting starts in Paris, the Bureau is launching a series of investigations into the role played by financial investors in commodity and food markets, focusing on the rising involvement of private equity in buying land around the world and its new food frontier, fish farming.

leading experts in Canadian farmland investment and agri-business investment will meet at the Canadian Farmland & Agri-Business Investment Seminar.

Letter asks Indias to join with Ethiopians and other Africans in confronting the hundreds of Indian companies who are now at the forefront of colluding with African dictators in robbing the people of their land, resources, lives and future

Jean Claude Gandur’s ethanol project in Sierra Leone comes at a sensitive time, with concerns being raised of exploitation of developing countries for resources.

“We have opened a new page with the Egyptian government,” Alwaleed said at a news conference with Egyptian PM Essam Sharaf. “We call on Arab and international investors to return to Egypt as soon as possible.”

An international fact-finding team is in the country to investigate the alleged land-grabbing by Philippine, Japanese and Taiwanese companies of some 11,000 hectares from indigenous peoples in Isabela to build the biggest bio-ethanol project in the Philippines.

Ukraine has ditched proposals to allow foreigners to buy up its farmland in a privatisation process, to prevent wealthy multinationals snapping up its farmland on the cheap.

The Chinese article on the deal emphasized that Chongqing citizens would get the soy oil at a very cheap price ("价格将更便宜").