China’s investment in foreign agriculture totaled $26 billion in 2016, with investments in 100 countries. But this may just be the tip of the iceberg. A new report by the United States Department of Agriculture to understand both the scale and purpose of foreign investment in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries.
Tanzania has attracted huge interest as a destination for large-scale agricultural investment due to sufficient land and cheap labour. As traditional laws that once protected village land weaken, indigenous communities and farmers have repeatedly lost chunks of land facilitated by foreign investors.
- InDepth News
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05 August 2018
The African Development Bank and the FAO form a new strategic alliance that involves joint advocacy and policy advice activities to promote the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems.
- Businessweek
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29 August 2018
Award-winning Cameroonian journalist Madeleine Ngeunga and Fern’s Indra Van Gisbergen recently visited villages in the shadow of Socapalm’s oil palm plantations to see if issues driving the dispute between locals and the company are being resolved.
Widespread contract farming for Cavendish bananas to export to China began in the North of Thailand two years ago, along with a large-scale plantation owned by a Thai-Chinese joint venture.
- The Nation
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17 September 2018
Control of land for crops that sustain the world’s largest food businesses, such as Ferrero and Nestle, is the driving force behind the destruction of land affecting both environment and people worldwide.
- Globe Post
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24 August 2018
Iran's South Khorasan Province aims to get hold of 10,000 ha of farmland in Kazakhstan for its own food production. Ukraine is also being targeted.
- Financial Tribune
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13 June 2017
Louise Nkakè affirme qu’un jour des soldats l’ont agressée et poussée violemment avec leurs fusils pour ensuite lui confisquer les noix qu’elle cuisait sous prétexte que celles-ci auraient volées dans la plantation de la Socapalm. Elle a insisté sur le fait qu’il s’agissait de ses propres noix.
- InfoCongo.org
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14 January 2019
Illegally banana plantations backed by obscure nexus of Chinese investors are making quick profits for some, but fuelling land conflict and environmental degradation in Kachin province, Myanmar.
- Frontier Myanmar
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17 January 2019
Little of the 5 million acres [2.02 million hectares] that Sudan's agriculture ministry estimates are in foreign hands—perhaps less than 1 in 20 acres—has been cultivated.
Saudi Arabia-based SAK Consultants is looking into investing in land or forming a partnership with landowners to export vegetables and meat to Saudi Arabia.
Multi-million pound corporations with complex structures have purchased the very ground we walk on – and we are only just beginning to discover the damage it is doing to Britain.
According to asset managers, a window is emerging for institutional money to flow into agriculture due to change of ownership, notably in markets such as Australia and the US.
Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos, Nigeria and President of RECOWA-CERAO has voiced against massive grabbing of agricultural land in Africa.
A law to privatise farmland, ultimately for the benefit of global finance and agribusiness, was pushed through Parliament under pressure from the IMF in the context of the coronavirus crisis.
- World Socialist
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01 April 2020
In response to resistance from people’s movements, Sri Lanka has pulled out of MCC agreement, which would have opened the door for commercial agriculture and large scale acquisition of Sri Lankan lands for foreign individuals and corporations.
- LVC South Asia
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21 May 2020
Suguna Poultry Kenya, subsidiary of India’s multinational Suguna Foods, will expand its breeder and hatchery poultry farms with financing from the World Bank's IFC.
- Africa Agribusiness
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11 Mar 2020
Over the past two decades, Cambodia’s land leasing policy has led to more than a tenth of the country’s land area being leased and has become increasingly controversial because of its negative impact on local livelihoods.
- Radio Free Asia
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26 August 2020
Egypt has agreed with Sudan to study a plan to grow crops together on Sudanese land within the framework of economic cooperation between the two countries.
- Al-Monitor
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16 September 2020
The industry boom in the demand for palm oil has come at the high price of rainforest destruction, labour exploitation, and brutal land and water grabbing. The pressure from oil palm plantations has pushed communities in West Borneo on a common struggle to access clean water and continue producing food.
- ECOTON, GEMAWAN, GRAIN, KRUHA
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04 December 2020
In Colombia, big agribusinesses, cattle ranchers, transnational corporations, and wealthy landowners have been able to claim land that is not theirs by acquiring titles through a legal system farming families have no access to.
- Labour Notes
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08 January 2021
About 66 per cent of conflicts related to palm oil in West Kalimantan in the last two decades have yet to be resolved, according to a report recently issued by the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV).
The joint venture by Wilmar, Josovina Commodities and Bidco Africa Ltd is establishing its second palm oil project on Buvuma Island and targets to have 1,000ha under trees this year and 5,000ha in four years
- Food Business Africa
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09 Mar 2021
The village in Guatemala is surrounded by oil palm plantations belonging to the HAME Group but residents feel none of the benefits
- China Dialogue
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25 June 2021
Flooded farms, land grabs, and production costs are driving Lao villagers from their land to seek work in the cities.
The United Arab Emirates has expressed interest in investing in Indonesia's farming sector, specifically sugarcane plantations, says the secretary general of the Agriculture Ministry.
Whether foreigners should be allowed to buy land is one of the bones of contention surrounding the reform, with more than 80 percent of Ukrainians opposed to it.
The EU is trying to move soya production from Brazil to eastern Europe where big conglomerates are buying up fertile land in the country, depleting soils, planting illegal GMOs and polluting fresh water sources.
- Open Democracy
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14 October 2021
Institutional investors and foreign countries alike increasingly see U.S. farmland as a sound investment, raising concerns.
- Progressive Farmer
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01 November 2021
In order to attract capital, selected regions for development projects must dramatize their potential as places for investment, carefully selecting project locations and participants who will make compromises so as to conceal failure, virtually guaranteeing that the programme will be declared a success when the time comes for evaluation.
- The Elephant
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26 November 2021