The Lahore High Court Bar Association stated that farmlands were being acquired by the Arabs as front men for the Americans who would eventually use them for possible military bases, because Arabs had been front men in the bid to purchase Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) for an Indian businessman.
Une filiale américaine de la Financière Manuvie qui a récemment fait une percée au Québec en achetant des terres agricoles totalisant 450 hectares dans les Bois-Francs affirme qu'elle est venue au Canada avec la ferme intention d'y rester et d'y prendre de l'expansion.
Hancock Agricultural Investment Group, a Boston-based unit of Toronto's Manulife Financial Corp., decided its first Canadian purchase would be an 1,100-acre (450-hectare) patch of land that it called "one of the most highly productive properties in the industry." The company will not disclose how much it paid, or even the exact location of the farm. But president Jeff Conrad said the company is in Canada to stay, and the fund plans to seek more land.
"In any resource sector, if you want to get involved, you always want to be in the upstream. It doesn't matter whether it's mining, whether its oil and gas or agriculture," says ABN AMRO's Tariono.
Abdulaye Wade says there is nothing wrong with leasing land: Saudi Arabia is already in Senegal and China is close to a deal with farmers' groups to use 100,000 ha for growing peanuts.
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.
Activists say as many as 150,000 people in the Tana River delta could be displaced by the Qatari land-lease deal -- and it is not the only one in Kenya.
Selon le ministre de l'Agriculture, Brian Chituwo, des entreprises américaines et émiraties sont intéressées par la création de grandes exploitations agricoles en Zambie, pour cultiver du sucre et des céréales.
KKR said that the company planned to build or acquire up to a further 30 large-scale farms over the next few years.
Companies from the US and the UAE are interested in establishing large farms in Zambia to grow sugar and grains, the country's agriculture minister said
An investor analysis of the case for buying up farmland
As world population expands, the demand for arable land should soar. At least that's what George Soros, Lord Rothschild, and other investors believe.
