From the World Bank to pension funds, efforts are under way to regulate land grabs through the creation of codes and standards. Rather than help financial and corporate elites to "responsibly invest" in farmland, we need them to stop and divest.
One of the greatest threats Africa has ever faced is the impact from this new phenomenon of land-grabbing
- AllAfrica
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21 September 2012
Transcription d'une table ronde organisée à Paris le 8 avril 2013 avec Stefano Liberti, Olivier de Schutter, Luc Lamprière et Anne-Cécile Robert
Wilmar says it plans to expand its oil palm plantations holdings in West Africa and to start producing sugar in Burma.
The grazing lands of the Maasai community in East Africa are being viewed as the next frontier for land grabbing.
- Intercontinental Cry
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27 November 2014
The Association of Women Living Alongside Socapalm Edéa (AFRISE), whose rights have been violated by Socapalm in Edéa, take their demands to the President of Cameroon
Capitalists of the world are cornering land in emerging markets. India need not wait until international agencies start lecturing us on the need for “reforms” (and FDI) in agriculture.
- Financial Express
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03 June 2009
International executives urged Russia to maximise its potential by encouraging more private investment and opening up more land to foreign investors.
"The rush for land by outside players is more proof of the enormous potential of African agriculture. Africa itself must harness this potential," Kofi Annan says
Laos has approached Thailand as a partner in a joint venture with Kuwait to grow rice in Laos. The Lao government has allocated 200,000ha.
Pursuing its strategy of penetrating the Middle East market, the company has set up a special committee to study the possibility to increase exports to the region. So far, the company has signed a farming contract with Bahrain for supplying food products.
- The Nation
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02 September 2009
Sheik Mohammed Hussein Ali Al Amoudi, the second richest person in Saudi Arabia, is preparing to farm cereals on hundreds of thousands of hectares of Ethiopian land for export to Saudi Arabia
- Addis Fortune
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14 September 2009
Civil society, including African farmers unions, need to educate local people that such land deals are not in their interests, however couched in 'win-win' terminology they appear to be.
Sime Darby Plantation Sdn Bhd is exploring opportunities in other African countries besides Liberia for its palm oil business expansion.
- The Star
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18 September 2009
Vita Grain Group, which is backed by US $60 million of funding, owns more than 20 different strains of hybrid rice seeds. Vita Grain is looking for funding to expand its seed production beyond Africa to Asia, the US and South America. The company is also setting up a rice mill in Mauritius and is in talks with partners in Botswana, Madagascar and Mozambique to develop rice production units.
- Business Times
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06 October 2009
A delegation of 26 Egyptian agriculture companies led by Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza, is now inspecting land proposed by the Ethiopian government for Egyptian investment projects.
- NewBusinessEthiopia.com
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30 December 2009
Ethiopia must harness its enormous agricultural potential, not by selling it off as a cheap commodity, but by supporting farmers in growing culturally appropriate crops for domestic markets, using agro-ecologically sustainable farming methods.
- FoodFirst
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04 February 2010
As many foreign and local investor are seeking to win a license to invest in the giant agriculture project in Papua, Indonesia, one unnamed South Korean investor has obtained a permit. Mitsubishi is also bidding. Binladin Group has been rejected.
- Tempo Interaktif
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10 February 2010
In a move to attract foreign investment, Cambodia has awarded big concessions to companies, mainly from China, Vietnam and South Korea, to run mines, power plants and farms, leading to a rise in forced evictions by state officials profiting on the sale and lease of farmland for use by foreign and local companies.
"The Chinese want a secure food supply, and they're coming into New Zealand to do that, by the look of it," a local farm union official says
Director General of UNIDO: says land acquisition through foreign investors must be carefully considered and strictly scrutinized.
- African Executive
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02 April 2010
Selon le Parti pour l’indépendance et le travail, la nouvelle loi sénégalaise sur la privatisation des terres est une vaste opération de bradage des terres utiles du Sénégal au profit des agrobusiness, entamée avec la bénédiction des institutions de Bretton Woods.
- Le Quotidien
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07 April 2010
Unfortunately, the US Senate inquiry into Goldman Sach's alleged malfeasance is unlikely to question why the company in 2008 decided to acquire ten intensive poultry farms in China's Hunan and Fujian provinces for $300 million.
- Huffington Post
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04 May 2010
South Korea's Hyundai Corporation is trying to purchase 10,000 ha of farmland in Brazil to grow soybeans for the Korean market
New Zealand's state-owned farm company Landcorp dismisses as conspiracy theory the notion that its bid for the Crafar farms is political interference
The government of Brazil is studying the possibility of prohibiting the purchase of land by foreigners. A discussion with the journalist who broke the news, Mauro Zanatto.
- El Espectador
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24 June 2010
Australia's opposition leader Tony Abbott said his Liberal-National coalition of center-right parties could revise the country's foreign investment laws if it wins power in the Aug. 21 general election.
La polémique autour de l'accaparement de terres, en particulier en Afrique, est relancée par une étude de la Banque mondiale qui tarde à être publiée alors que le cours du blé repart à la hausse
Nationwide advertisements have been placed in newspapers today, calling for an end to foreign ownership of New Zealand farmland.
Du point de vue de GRAIN, ce rapport très attendu de la Banque mondiale est à la fois une déception et un échec.