HighQuest Partners has documented an additional 100 ag investors that have made their first investment in food and agriculture in the first quarter of 2020, directly or via allocations to asset managers.

Foreign buyers stepping into the rural property or agribusiness sector will have to negotiate new regulatory hurdles aimed at preventing a rush of opportunistic offshore-based takeovers during the coronavirus emergency.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa is planning to parcel out vast tracts of prime horticultural land to the Belarusian government in a deal that will see the eastern European nation farming and exporting produce.

Almost a decade since government of Cambodia granted 40,000 hectares land concession to five Chinese companies believed to be subsidiaries of a single Chinese owned firm, Hengfu. The whole project that affected indigenous Kuoy community has now fallen apart.

Chinese sugarcane concessionaire Rui Feng and four linked firms seemed to have shut down their operations in the combined 40,000-hectare sugarcane plantation in northern Cambodia, with little public notice of the closure. All firms have faced multiple land disputes, especially with indigenous minorities.

Companies from countries across the world have acquired fertile Nile-irrigated land for growing food crops, non-food agricultural commodities such as alfalfa, flowers, tobacco, and biofuels, rearing livestock and logging trees.

The British government is ramping up its policy to divert taxpayers’ money into private hands and plantation companies like Feronia – and away from the world’s poorest people, warns Labour’s Dan Carden.

Ukrainians are concerned that cash-flush foreigners could snap up one of Ukraine’s agricultural lands, leaving many of the country’s 41 million people forced to work for others on the soil they once owned.

China hosted African agricultural leaders for a forum to expand and deepen cooperation, investment, and trade with African agriculture over the next 3 years. And 11 project agreements were signed by government departments, international organizations, research units, and companies, adding to 115 agricultural projects that China has in two-thirds of African countries.

Indonesian government have alleged that permits underpinning a multi-billion dollar plantation project in Papua were falsified. The land is being opened up by investors whose identity is hidden behind anonymously owned companies, as part of a plan to develop an oil palm plantation almost twice the size of London in the remote region.

Villagers believe that local authorities have illegally conspired to sell a large part of the forest to Hamenivent

A Canadian pension fund has bought a huge parcel of Australian permanent water rights for $490M to irrigate almond trees, in a move that puts the spotlight on foreign ownership of farms and water resources as drought ravages the country.

Hainan Qinfu Foods Company Limited from China is looking for 5,000 acres of land to invest a total of $450m in a specialized aquaculture industrial park.

Four European development banks are financing a palm oil company in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is violating workers’ rights and dumping untreated waste, says a report by Human Rights Watch.

The UK development bank has been accused of failing to protect workers from exposure to dangerous pesticides and paying “extreme poverty” wages on palm oil plantations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Matteo Patrone, EBRD Managing Director for Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, warns against mistakes in reform and believes that a pause should be taken

Chinese companies first appeared in Russia's Far East in the early 2000s, but Beijing's interest in the region increased after the global financial crisis of 2008. Chinese investment was followed by an influx of Chinese migrants.

With very low interest rates having taken root across asset classes and investors abiding in their hunt for higher yields, the world’s largest manager of global farmland, Nuveen, says the season may be ripe for a strategic allocation to the $2.3 trillion market for U.S. farm real estate.

Overall, nearly $5b of sensitive land has changed hands in New Zealand through the Overseas Investment Office since the Labour-led government was formed.

The government of Sierra Leone has signed a $275M investment deal with the Turkish SALA Group, for the resumption of large-scale rice farm project, covering 54,000 ha in Torma Bum.

New investigation by Global Witness uncovers more than 300 banks and investors back six of the world’s most harmful agribusinesses to the tune of $44bn.

Global Witness exposes how more than 300 banks and investors back six of the world’s most harmful agribusinesses to the tune of $44bn

As foreign ownership of agriculture land continues to increase, efforts to limit foreign ownership of US farmland have gained traction.

As the Amazon rainforest continues to burn, members of Divest Harvard — a student group demanding the University divest from fossil fuels — are renewing their calls on Harvard to withdraw its holdings in farmland across the globe, including in Brazil.

COFCO announced it will finance the expansion of more than 60 million acres [24 million ha] of soybean production in Brazil.

Agribusiness—especially soy, sugar, palm oil, and beef production—was the second deadliest sector for people standing up for the environment and their lands.

The sell-down of northern grazing assets continues for Terra Firma’s Consolidated Pastoral Co, with a deal announced today to sell its Ucharonidge station in the Northern Territory to Malcolm Harris’s Cleveland Agriculture.

As foreign ownership of agriculture land continues to increase, efforts to limit foreign ownership of U.S. farmland have gained traction.

Vinamilk, Vietnam’s largest dairy company, has teamed up with Lao and Japanese businesses to build an organic dairy farm and resort in Xieng Khuang province, Laos. The first phase of the farm will cover 5,000 ha and the second phase is expected to expand the farm to 15,000-20,000 ha.

China's investment in foreign agricultural projects is booming, according to statistics peddled by Chinese agricultural officials during "Belt and Road" summit held in Beijing.