US

We should not invest in financial companies that perpetrate activities that rob agricultural land from the poor, argues Patricia Kisare of the Mennonite Central Committee Washington Office.

Stephen Diggle plans to open his personal portfolio of farmlands in the US, Uruguay and New Zealand to investors and to pour money into Africa and eastern Europe as global food prices soar.

The US-based AgriSol Company has landed another lucrative land deal involving 10,000 hectres amid growing public outcry about the recent land deals sealed by the company in Rukwa region.

Research released today by the Oakland Institute demonstrates that land grabs--largely unregulated land deals involving foreign corporations and speculators--continue to be promoted as a "development" solution for African nations.

Iowa State University has landed in some hot water regarding its involvement with an international land development project in Tanzania.

"There's a lot of money chasing the grow-out of agricultural land right now," says Gary Thien of Thien Farm Management.

If you care, and you attend or attended college, it is your responsibility as a student or alumni to speak up and say that you care. If enough of us do so, they will listen!

"The stock market's pretty wild. The bond market's nothing. CDs are zero," said Steve Runyan, an agricultural real estate appraiser, "and so you have a tremendous amount of money in pension funds and investment funds of some kind that need some kind of return." Some of his clients for California farmland are international companies looking at global population trends.

A fierce debate is currently taking place concerning huge tracts of Tanzanian land which U.S. investors are seeking to develop. Tens of thousands of former refugees now farm the land.

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the US government’s development finance institution, approved Wednesday a $150 mln financial package that will go to Citadel Capital, a regional private equity firm that just completed its first wheat harvest in Sudan.

The Dominion Farms at Yala Swamp, Kenya has seen the local community turn against what they initially welcomed with open hands.

Commodities trader Jim Rogers, known for his investment prowess alongside George Soros, is in Australia to launch a new rural land fund which is seeking to raise up to $350 million to buy farms in northern NSW