The Brazilian government now prohibits non-Brazilians from buying controlling shares of companies that own vast tracts of territory in the country, Attorney General Luiz Inacio Adams said this week.

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.

Investing in Adecoagro is “a way to play the potential global shortage of food, especially in emerging markets,” says Francis Gaskins, president of IPOdesktop.com

Gulf governments have focused almost exclusively on controlling land where food is grown, investing in projects and buying land in North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and central Asia. Perhaps the better strategy would be to look for food closer to home.

Olam CEO says his company utilises political risk insurance from the World Bank and other sources for its agri-investments in Africa.

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?

A conference organised by the East Africa Legislative Assembly and the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation has chided East African governments for leasing land to foreigners without the explicit consent of existing users

New Zealand's Green Party has drafted a bill seeking to stop overseas buyers snapping up large tracts of NZ land. Australian farmers also fear they may have trouble coping with future food and water demands if foreign interests snap up too many of the nation's agricultural resources.

Noble Group Ltd., the commodity supplier backed by China Investment Corp., wants to buy and build coal mines, ports and plantations to benefit from rising Asian demand, Chief Executive Officer Ricardo Leiman said.

The Tanzania government has signed a five-year livestock and fishing agreement with China that would see Chinese firms invest in aquaculture and livestock projects.

Some of the world's biggest sugar players, including Brazil's Cosan, New York-listed Bunge and privately held US multinational Cargill, might join China in the race for CSR's sugar division

As food aid stamped with the World Food Programme's logo is shipped to Sudan, thousands of tons of wheat and rice are shipped out.

South Korea, through the Korean Economic Development Fund, has extended a $50 million (about Sh65 billion) loan to the Rufiji Basin Development Authority (Rubada). About 100,000 hectares of land have been set aside for modern rice farming under the project.

Zimbabwe Investments Authority acting chief executive Mrs Elina Karwi said the most basic requirement towards facilitating agriculture-related FDI was making land for agriculture available.

The Australian almond plantations of agribusiness group Timbercorp have been sold to Singapore-based multinational food giant Olam International for $128 million.

The Lahore High Court Bar Association stated that farmlands were being acquired by the Arabs as front men for the Americans who would eventually use them for possible military bases, because Arabs had been front men in the bid to purchase Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) for an Indian businessman.

The $1bn project, dubbed 7X7, aims at developing 700,000 ha of farmland to produce within 7 years 7 million tonnes of rice in Mali, Senegal and maybe Sudan and Uganda.

Philip Kiriro of the East Africa Farmers' Federation says the countries most endangered by landgrabbing in the region are Tanzania and DRC

Thai farmers were justified when they told television news they did not agree with the proposal of letting the Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC) start its own farms in Thailand.

Thai exporters are concerned about the "land-grabbing colonialism" strategy being used by developed nations such as South Korea to reap benefits from agricultural goods grown in a second country and exported to other nations.

India, once the colonial jewel of Britain's empire, has been accused of 'neo-colonialism' in Africa where its business people have joined a race with China, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to buy up agricultural estates and take advantage of cheap labour.

The Leopard Cambodia Fund has set aside $1.8m to establish Cambodia Plantations, a Singapore-based company which will serve as an offshore finance vehicle for agricultural investments in central Cambodia. The drawdown will fund the establishment of a subsidiary that is in the process of obtaining a land concession in the province of Kompong Chhnang for rice cultivation.

Investors from the UAE are considering a number of investments in Pakistan, despite escalating violence in the north-west of the country.

PAVA together with its agricultural subsidiary explores the investment potential of Russian lands amid the world booming demand on agricultural resources

Madagascar has “definitely abandoned” a $6 billion farming agreement with Daewoo Logistics Corp., though may welcome agriculture investment in the future, Minister of Land Reform Hajo Andrianainarivelo said.

All hedge funds that trade in food commodities should be required to register, the UN’s expert on the right to food Olivier De Schutter told the Press on Monday. Index derivatives should be prohibited and only “useful trading… hedging not speculation” should be allowed, in order to protect the poor and hungry from the market.

The reported land deal between Kenya and Qatar is not unique. The Philippines Department of Agrarian Reform said in 2007 it was looking at large tracts of land for agribusiness development under a MoU signed with China. The memo calls for the development of land to grow hybrid corn, rice and sorghum.

The government aims to net more investment from Middle East oil state main players next year, in particular in the agricultural sector, despite the global economic downturn, says a government official.

Agcapita allows investors to gain direct exposure to a key part of the agriculture commodity bull market story - Canadian farmland.

Given its unsuitable climate for agricultural development, the UAE must look abroad if it is to significantly expand its agricultural output. Pakistan could be the perfect partner.