Standard Chartered Bank's Africa private equity arm and a unit of Reliance Capital are in talks to invest in Dubai-based Karuturi Overseas.

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.

US government cable discusses 24 January 2010 meeting organised by Swiss Development Corporation, UN Food and Agriculture Organization and International Fund for Agricultural Investment on "Land, Investment, and Development," attended by many of the key players working on responsible international agro-industrial and land investment principles

The Indonesian government is wise to learn from the South Korea Daewoo-Madagascar deal, which demonstrated the enormous economic, social and political risks associated with foreign ownership of land and water rights.

A discussion note prepared by FAO, IFAD, UNCTAD and the World Bank Group to contribute to an ongoing global dialogue.

A foreign company intends to clear 10 000 hectares of land in the Bwabwata National Park in northern Namibia in order to set up a large-scale irrigation scheme for crop farming

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

Uganda has agreed to allow Egypt to cultivate wheat on Ugandan soil.

Lawrence Asset Management's Ravi Sood suggests investing in food production in low-cost areas that are water-rich – Brazil, tropical Africa, Malaysia and Indonesia.

He confirmed that the Ministry received very wide offers of investment by Arab and foreign investors.

The much-discussed Congo land-lease, granting 200,000 hectares to South African farmers with a further 10 million hectares in the balance, appears to mark a departure from the usual terms underpinning foreign acquisition of fertile land by multinationals

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.

Citadel Capital will deploy significant capital across East Africa in 2010 in sectors spanning from agriculture to consumer foods.

"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.

Ethiopia's potential can be maximized only if we Ethiopians are the producers and sellers of our own agricultural products. What Meles Zenawi is doing now is putting this upside down. He made our potential buyers the sellers of our commodity.

In Mali the government has approved long-term leases for outside investors to develop more than 160,000 hectares of land. Local farmers say they fear being pushed out.

Sources close to Al-Amoudi said that the king has shown an interest in seeing other Saudi companies involved in rice farming after seeing the samples presented by Al-Amoudi

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

"Qatar is in the process of formulating a national strategy for food security that we expect to shift from a focus on land ownership in developing countries to land leases and joint ventures with the private sector in developed countries," reports the US Embassy in Doha

UAE foreign investment in food production have so far focused on leasing Pakistan and Sudan’s agricultural land, with new prospects in Cambodian rice, Canadian wheat and Australian beef. Alongside the strategic deals at the national level, private investment has followed which should open new channels of trade, for example, Al Qudra Holding has plans to grow grain and vegetables in Vietnam and Croatia as well as Pakistan.

"The motivation for South African farmers is simple," said Theo de Jager, Agri SA's deputy president, who helped negotiate the deal. "One in four farms must be redistributed in the next four or five years. So for new entrants into the sector and for those farmers who want to expand there is nowhere to go."

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.

Sime Darby Plantation Sdn Bhd is exploring opportunities in other African countries besides Liberia for its palm oil business expansion.

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.

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

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.

An internal document recently posted on IRRI's website reveals that the Institute has been advising Saudi Arabia in the context of its strategy to acquire farm land overseas for its own food production.

"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.

A new breed of colonialism is rampaging across the world, with rich nations buying up the natural resources of developing countries that can ill afford to sell. Some staggering deals have already been done, but angry locals are now trying to stop the landgrabs

For investors like Susan Payne, the chief executive of Emergent Asset Management, farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is a hot bet.