If Indonesia decides to go ahead with leasing farmland, it should do so with caution, keeping an eye on both the risks and the opportunities. We need to understand that we have a very strong bargaining position.

Contrary to past trends, countries in the Global South are initiating much of the investment.

THESE days, as we follow the struggle against the Taliban in the northwest, we can be forgiven for missing other important news. For instance, I had filed away a report on plans to lease large chunks of agricultural land in Punjab and Sindh to overseas investors in the back of my mind, planning to write about it later. When I ran a Google search on the subject, however, I realised the enormity of the scam.When I ran a Google search

Stephen Marks looks at the latest rush by China and countries in the middle east to sign lease agreements in poor countries for agricultural production, and what this trend means in terms of food security and access to arable land for local populations.

South Korea has just leased half of all the arable land in Madagascar according to the Financial Times. This has stirred quite a debate in the Malagasy blogosphere about land sovereignty and economic development.

Defence Front for the Interests of Santa Clara de Uchunya condemn the smear campaign of the company Ocho Sur and demand its withdrawal from their ancestral territory

"They are selling off African land for a song," said Ndiogou Fall, president of the executive committee for the Network of Peasant Organizations and Producers in West Africa (ROPPA), which is calling for dialogue between governments, producers and African and foreign investors.

Latin America is the most dangerous region in the world for activists fighting for their land or trying to safeguard the environment, according to a Global Witness report, which also provides insight into why these defenders are at such high risk.

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China is one of the world's largest consumers of agricultural commodities such as soy and palm oil that drive deforestation globally. But it isn’t just Chinese consumption of these commodities that is helping fuel forest destruction. Global Witness new analysis sheds a spotlight on the often-overlooked role of Chinese banks as some of the biggest global financiers of deforestation.

CNBC Africa reports on the US-based company African Agriculture Inc and its relationship with Les Fermes de la Teranga, which took over the lands previously leased to Senhuile, in northern Senegal

The UN Committee on Food Security has failed to endorse a code of conduct on foreign land investments, in a blow to efforts to draft international guidelines to regulate so-called "land grabs".

The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch shows how land grabbing aggravates hunger in Africa, Asia and Latin America by leading to eviction of peasant communities from their main source of livelihood.

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.

A new register of agricultural land will not be made public despite the Government's promise to provide more transparency over foreign investment in Australian farms.

Cartogram of land grabs led by foreign investors after 2006

On 29th May, farmers in the Polish Region of West Pomerania organised a protest against land grabbing.

An economic analysis of land grabbing in 25 countries by a French securities firm. Predicts the entry of Danone, Nestlé and Unilever into the fray.

Nnimmo Bassey from Nigeria said that these principles legitimize a new form of colonialism with grave dangers for millions of local livelihoods and the environment.

"If the government wants to eliminate famine, it should give farmers access to more land, and not give it away for corporations"

It is not clear whether a strategy is in place to ensure that part of the food produced by the rich food importers farms will be sold locally.

The ProSAVANA program intentionally weakens and creates division among peasants while there is an increased risk of even more peasants losing their land.

The media and environmentalists must intensify their focus on the environmental costs of international farmland transactions.

"On today's Human Rights Day, we demand that States fulfill their obligation to respect and protect the right to food of their citizens and abroad by preventing large scale land grabbing" says Sofia Monsalve of FIAN International.

A focus on agricultural productivity should not become a cover for foreign private companies to grab land or impose expensive, input-intensive methods in the name of modernisation.

Prof Hastings Okoth-Ogendo died last month hours after his groundbreaking draft, ‘Framework and guidelines on land policy in Africa’, was approved by a conference of African Union ministers of land and agriculture.

Macquarie Group's agricultural division has launched a new cropping fund that will buy large-scale grain properties in Australia and Brazil.

Water grabbing refers to situations where powerful actors take control of valuable water resources for their own benefit, depriving local communities whose livelihoods often depend on these resources and ecosystems.

MCC is playing a key role in commodifying Africa’s farmlands

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.