Philippines

A southwestern province in South Korea has leased 94,000 hectares of farmland in Mindoro to grow 10,000 tons of corn a year for feed for 25 years, a provincial government official said on Tuesday. In Manila, however, agriculture officials were caught unaware of such lease agreement

A South Korean provincial government has leased a major plot of farmland in the central Philippines to grow corn as part of Seoul's bid for food security, officials said Thursday.

La FAO s’inquiète des violations des droits des paysans que ces accaparements de terres peuvent entraîner, et s’interroge sur la participation des populations locales aux bénéfices générés. Mais elle y voit avant tout une perspective de développement. Au profit de qui ?

"We believe there are many opportunities for investment in Thailand and Philippines and for both countries in Bahrain," a Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry representative said. "Food security is one area we are trying to emphasise. We had discussions in planting and growing bananas and rice in both countries."

Undeterred by recent debates, a Bahrain scouting mission left for a week-long trip to the Philippines and Thailand yesterday, where it hopes to secure fruit and vegetable plantations.

We challenge the line agencies, legislators and national government to immediately stop the leasing of public land to foreign corporations. Instead, public lands that have huge potential to ensure food security and nation building should be distributed to Filipino small farmers.

The left-leaning fisherfolk alliance Pamalakaya and staunch ally KMP on Thursday exposed what they called a secret agricultural pact between the Philippines and Bahrain.

Gulf oil producers are considering plans to invest in farming projects in the Philippines to face a steady increase in domestic food demand and reduce a painful import bill, said the region's private sector leader.

"We have our experiences about foreign ownership of land in Mindanao, where Dole and Del Monte controlled hundreds of thousands of hectares of lands, through leaseback agreements, cultivating their raw materials, thus, peasants have been transformed to mere lowly agricultural workers whose rights of their lands have been stripped off," said Antonio Flores, KMP Spokesperson.

KKR said that the company planned to build or acquire up to a further 30 large-scale farms over the next few years.

A memorandum of understanding and cooperation will be signed between the Federation of GCC Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Sam Pov, a rice farmer in Cambodia’s western Battambang Province, is very worried that his land will be taken over by a foreign investor.