Foreign interests including state-owned companies from China and the Middle East are increasingly looking to Australia to secure their food production by purchasing key agricultural assets.

State-backed food producing and marketing giant, Hassad Food Company, has plans to produce rice in India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Hassad Food says it would soon begin meeting at least 50 percent of Qatar's wheat requirements and later 20 percent of its poultry needs.

Hassad Food Company intends to invest $500mn to $700mn this year for projects across the world as part of its mission to ensure food security for Qatar, chairman and managing director Nasser bin Mohamed Mubarak al-Fuhaid al-Hajri has said.

"I understand Moldova has a favourable climate and good farmland, which Qatar’s Hassad Food could possibly look at for opportunities," says Qatar's Deputy Premier

"As more investors look into the opportunities that developed nations present there will be no need to go underground or be ashamed of these deals," said Hakan Agro's Tomar.

Ghana Investment Promotion Centre is seeking investments from Qatar to the tune of $700mn, including a major deal with Hassad Food

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund agricultural company launched Hassad Australia last year, aimed at ensuring that livestock and grain needs for Qatar, from Australian farmland, are met.

Qatar-based Hassad Food has initiated its investment in Australian ­agriculture with the purchase of the prized Kaladbro Estate in far western Victoria.

A delegation of top Kenana Sugar officials is in Doha to hold talks with Qatar’s Hassad group to create one of the world’s biggest food producing companies with a view to ensuring food security in the Arab world.

The urgency among Gulf states to pursue farmland acquisitions has diminished as food prices have gone down and controversy has gone up. Still, Saudi Arabia is pushing ahead with its plans.

Both private and public sector investors from countries such as Qatar, Libya, Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the Arab world as well as China and Korea elsewhere now hold long term rights to a total of two million feddans of arable land in Sudan, according to figures from the country’s agriculture ministry.

Hassad Food has launched a large project for producing livestock in Australia with a capacity of up to 70,000 Syrian head of sheep in its first year, and then up to 150,000 head of sheep in three years. The company will also purchase farmlands for the production of grains especially wheat.

"Hassad [Food] has innovated by considering investments in overseas agribusinesses rather than only purchasing land in countries with questionable property rights, and where the indigenous population may not benefit from such purchases," writes the US embassy in Doha

Qatar has embarked on a food-security programme to make it more self-sufficient and help the communities around its farmland projects in developing countries.

Hassad Food plans to invest all over the world. “Latin America, Asia, you name it,” says Al Hajri, “Where we invest, we make profit. If Qatar is in need of that production, Hassad has the pleasure to sell to Qatar at no special rate.”

Belarus has fertile land for agriculture and Hassad Food is evaluating different features in such markets like ease of laws

"Already we have received a lot of interest from the UAE to invest in Ukraine's agriculture sector, and we are offering all kinds of projects such as leasing of 100,000 hectares of land to the creation of animal farms with 3000 cows," Ukraine's agriculture minister said.

Area nearly the size of France purchased, leased for food production around the world Africa, South America, parts of Europe targeted by cash-rich, food-poor nations

Meanwhile, the government is planning to launch an initial public offering for the shares of Hassad Food, the strategic food investment arm of Qatar Investment Authority, in order to list it on the local bourse, according to Doha-based Al Arab daily.

One must ask if arrangements such as those promoted by Hassad Foods of Qatar are really that much better.

The firm also aims to conclude as many as six deals by year end, including in Latin America and is scouting Africa to set up joint ventures or buy firms to develop land.

“This partnership is to create an environment for the active NGOs in Qatar to venture into our foreign investments,” said Nasser Mohamed Al Hajri, Chairman and Managing Director, Hassad Food.

Qatar's Hassad Food is eyeing a stake in Russia's PAVA and has signed a deal potentially worth $1 billion to develop land in Sudan as it looks to grow through acquisitions and joint ventures, its chairman said on Thursday.

The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has launched a venture aiming to invest in food production worldwide focusing on the acquisition and development of existing agribusiness companies rather than the lease of large tracts of farmland.

Agricultural experts have called for a halt to moves by Gulf investors to snap up foreign land, amid claims that poor nations are losing much-needed farmland in a calculated land grab.

A Hassad Food advisor explained to Emboff September 3 that the company tailors its involvement in each country to the preferences of its partner in order to minimize local "backlash" to the company's actions.

Hassad Food's priority in business partnership and export will be given to Arabic and Islamic countries. “A big project will be launched in the near future between Qatar and Sudan. The budget is open as no minimum or maximum limit has been considered so it will be a big project.”

“We are looking for opportunities where we can work with partners owning or running farmlands and having expansion plans. We do not want to take away the land of the poor,” the chairman of Hassad Food says.

Hassad Food, owned by Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, will buck the Gulf Arab trend of buying farmland abroad to secure food supplies and consider taking stakes in agricultural companies instead, its chairman said.