World Bank

Gulf governments, entrepreneurs and sovereign wealth funds have spent vast sums buying or leasing farmland across Asia and Africa to try to secure cheaper imports and keep supermarket prices low. But the World Bank and UN want them to put more money into development aid.

Alarmed by exporting countries’ trade restrictions, importing countries have realised that their dependence on the international food market makes them vulnerable not only to an abrupt surge in prices but, more crucially, to an interruption in supplies.

An agreement for the allocation of 5,000 hectares of land in the Beira region was signed by Mauritius and Mozambique early this year.