More than 10 per cent of Papua New Guinea's land mass has been handed over to foreign and national corporate interests over the past seven years under mysterious land deals that appear to be aimed at logging, not food or cash crop production.

China's fast-growing farm corporations may be the next wave of Chinese investors in Australia, joining their already influential mining comrades.

A landmark agreement in the Kimberley is close to being sealed in which Australia's largest cattle corporation will lease vast tracts of land from their Aboriginal owners in return for providing jobs, training and a share of profits in the cattle business.

The global financial crisis may have hit tax-effective agribusiness schemes hard, but the prospects of the small group of companies that survived are anything but gloomy. "We're actually tapping into the new GFC, which is the global food crisis," says Wayne Overall, executive director of agribusiness managed investment scheme operator Almond Investors Limited

Foreign ownership of watersheds or agricultural land plays into the perennial food security fears that are common in a nation forced to import about 60 per cent of its food.

According to BlackRock world agriculture fund portfolio manager and director Desmond Cheung there is a "wall of money" that is looking to back the world's growing appetite for a stable and growing food supply.

PrimeAg chairman said while it was talking to domestic and offshore investors about taking part in the fund to reach a target of $600 million in funds under management within six months, it had grander ambitions.

Some of the world's biggest sugar players, including Brazil's Cosan, New York-listed Bunge and privately held US multinational Cargill, might join China in the race for CSR's sugar division

Olam executive sees good side to overseas investment in Australian farming.

Chinese billionaire is looking to expand overseas and potentially take part in the next big boom, which he says just might be Australian agriculture as Chinese people seek out higher-quality food products.

Australia's Federal Opposition will establish a working group to investigate options for sharpening rules governing the sale of Australian agricultural land and agribusinesses, to foreign entities.

The sliding dollar is sweetening Australia's appeal as an agricultural investment destination ripe for overseas companies and fund managers, particularly from North America and Europe.

One of China’s largest beef producers, Honda Agriculture, is looking to buy up to $100 million worth of cattle property in Australia over the next 12 months.

The government's plans to make northern Australia into an Asian food bowl with the help of Chinese investment may run into trouble, after a new poll confirmed opposition to foreigners buying the farm.

Chinese retailing giant the ­Dashang Group has snapped up one of Australia’s oldest herds of Wagyu cattle and a second highly productive farm in the prestigious upper Hunter Valley.

The chairman of the New Hope Group is a key Chinese partner in the Sino-Australia 100-Year Agricultural and Food Safety Partnership-- an initiative founded by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest

An Australian cattle farm was used by Chinese-owned company United World Enterprises to lure retirees into investing up to $46 million for fake agritourism and aged-care village schemes.

Legendary waterfront warrior Chris Corrigan could soon have one of the world’s top investors — Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board — as the main shareholder in his Australian listed agricultural company, Webster Limited.

It is understood the agricultural division of the $163 billion Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has been sniffing around Australian agricultural land recently and has had discussions in Australia with landholders such as PrimeAg.

With the purchase of nearly 15,000ha of land in Jerramungup last month, the Qatar-based Hassad Food Company now owns 250,000ha of farmland in Austalia

Vicstock Grain and its Chinese backers (Beidahuang) have dramatically scaled back their cropping operations in the Wheatbelt three years after a $70 million spending spree on farmland.

China's ravenous demand for Australian beef could soon lead to some major cattle station purchases, with one of ­several Chinese importers, Snow Dragon Group, looking to buy land.

More than half the guest list for the inaugural Australian Dairy Farm Investment Forum in Melbourne next month are ­corporate or Chinese investors seeking to be matched with advisory groups to find dairy land investments.

A hedge fund run by an arm of the world's largest agriculture company, Cargill, has injected almost $40 million into a local company which buys Australian rural property.

Local stock and station agents in Western District Australia estimate the Qatar government paid a premium of up to 20 per cent in order to secure the controversial deal,

China has backed turning northern Australia in to a food bowl for Asia saying the free trade deal will aid Chinese investment in farms in the region.

As PrimeAg Australia's $125 million sale of rural properties to US fund manager TIAA-CREF goes through, the question now being raised by investors is what will happen to the residual portfolio.

Australia’s big four banks; ANZ, the Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac are financing companies accused of land grabs, deforestation and labour abuses in developing countries according to a new report by Friends of the Earth Australia.

Listed Singaporean company QAF, ­formerly known as Bunge, has sold out its last dairy farm in Australia to the European pension fund-backed ACE Farming for close to $5 million.

Family that sold Australia's biggest water licence in history has been selling its NSW farming operations and is setting up a new agricultural empire in the Blue Nile state in Sudan