In making 2014 the 'Year of Agriculture' [sic!], the African Union has concentrated its focus on private-sector investment and public-private partnerships to drive the sector. Private equity financiers, funds and investors are answering the call.
India's Ambassador to Ethiopia Sanjay Verma says India's "pioneering" investors are not land grabbing, calls conflicts with local communities "teething problems".
Former President of the Egyptian-Sudanese Business Council says Sudan's farmland is the best in the world and Egypt has the ability to establish large agricultural projects in Sudan.
Will FPIC ‘help’ or ‘hurt’ the cause of agrarian justice? The dilemmas and challenges of using FPIC are already surfacing and warrant closer attention.
A small but growing group of sophisticated investors and bankers are combining crops and the soil they grow in into an asset class that ordinary investors can buy a piece of.
The $128-million deal that saw Canada Pension Plan acquire 46,500 hectares of Saskatchewan farmland was "wrong, both legally and morally," says Rick Swenson, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan.
Farmland total returns tend to be uncorrelated with financial asset returns, offering genuine portfolio diversification for institutional investors.
Japanese company drops plans to establish a 4,000 ha cotton farm in Mozambique's Nampula Province, within the Nacala Corridor.
Farmers in Kula, Serbia have made formal complaints about an Abu Dhabi company, Al Rawafed Agriculture, which is trying to acquire land.
Interest in land from high-net-worth investors is up at a time when stocks hover near record highs and bonds could be hurt by rising interest rates.
Liberia's Jogbahn Clan is at the forefront of efforts to resist the grab of land and forests for palm oil plantations. But the country's President says they are only 'harrassing and extorting' international investors.
Minister of Agriculture confirmed, during his meeting with China's ambassador to Khartoum, the Sudanese government's commitment to providing land for agricultural investment
