I urge the Government to stop conceding to foreigners the natural resources and the national reserves of the peoples of Ethiopia, and to begin helping Ethiopian farmers preserve and farm their lands organically.

These ‘food pirates’ come with bags full of foreign direct investment and are moving swiftly where land is available, investing in crops that can be shipped back home.

Private investment in Africa's agriculture is rising. says Neil Crowder of British firm Chayton Africa, which recently acquired a farm in Zambia.

Principles for responsible agriculture investment are stock templates, designed to deflect the fallout from a growing number of media reports of land deals between investors and governments.

Local food companies are not financially capable of investing in farmlands abroad to grow basic staples that would insulate them from soaring prices of raw materials, they said on the sidelines of Gulfood 2011.

Mohd Bakke Salleh, president and group chief executive of Malaysian conglomerate Sime Darby, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur earlier today that the group has identified 300,000 hectares (ha) of land in Cameroon that could be suitable for palm oil plantation.

Modern machineries of all sorts, owned and run by agri-companies, are turning the soils inside out, destroying forests and beginning to pollute the environment to get more production.

Foreign investors see Africa as a breadbasket. Done well, investment could help with African hunger but create food security for the rest of the world.

Ethiopian President Girma Woldegiorgis and the country’s environmental regulator have both written to the Agriculture Ministry expressing concern over the sale of forestry land to foreign agricultural companies.

Mali’s president and Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi have begun a major agricultural project that will divert much of the river’s water and threaten the delta’s future.

MOU signed with Perigon Advisory to launch a RM3 billion agribusiness fund to promote food security in the OIC and generate returns for its investors.

German investors have bought 11 dairy farms covering more than 3,600 hectares in New Zealand's South Island

The ECER has abundant land, which could fulfill the needs of Middle East countries that are looking for their food security program, says Malaysian official.

In this month's Global development podcast, the Guardian looks at land grabs, explores why they are happening, considers their implications and examines what – if anything – can be done to ensure large-scale agricultural investments are used for local development.

Part of the produce would go to local markets of producing countries, which have to provide necessary protection to Saudi investors through long-term agreements. A first such agreement was signed with the Philippines in February 2010.

As Gulf states continue to invest in foreign farmland, what are the long term implications

Foreign farmland acquisitions are a telling vote of no confidence in international markets by food-deficient countries, which understandably fear a repeat of the 2008 food crisis may deny them opportunities to buy grains and other essential soft commodities at any price.

Prime Minister Azarov says Ukraine won't be able to meet its demand for food without the revision of issues related to ownership in the agricultural sector

Affected rural poor communities and their allies are not likely to simply accept the land grabbing process in the way the World Bank and its supporters might suppose.

News of the deal has aroused very vehement protest from the Sudanese Farmer’s Union and the tenants in the Gezira Scheme.

New report by GRAIN shows how Saudi businessmen are pursuing deals in Africa that would give them control over some of the continent's most productive farmlands.

Saskatchewan has some of the richest and least expensive farmland in the world, and there's a gigantic pool of global money that would like to buy up as much of it as they can.

More than $9 billion of prized agricultural assets have been sold to offshore interests in the past two years alone.

Groups consider land deal "treason", saying its aim is to steal Egyptian water and create a state inside the state.

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation member states call for "responsible" agricultural investment as rising acquisition of farmland in developing countries by other nations is causing friction with local people.

The Egyptian external agricultural land deals are all the more fragile as a future government or policy change in Ethiopia or Sudan risks destabilizing their external food security strategy.

"I look forward to watching the [CFS] evolve and address issues such as land acquisition," says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Representatives of Saudi group Agro invest, a public-private agricultural investment company, are now in Brazil seeking partnerships for producing and exporting grain and poultry.

Farmers from La Via Campesina will be at meeting of the FAO Committee on World Food Security next week to demand concrete measures to tackle the problem of land-grabbing.