Groups strongly reject and condemn the G8’s proposed transparency initiative.

Lonrho Plc, which operates farms and claims land concessions in several African countries, said it received a £174.5 million buyout offer from a company controlled by Swiss billionaire Thomas Schmidheiny and investor Rainer-Marc Frey.

Africa is white hot with minerals and land deals in what could be the second scramble for Africa.

Aprodev commissioned research to investigate the involvement of European Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) in land grabs. The evidence shows that European DFIs are indeed involved in some land grabs, and there are real risks of being complicit in others in the future.

Two Vietnamese firms bankrolled by Deutsche Bank and the International Finance Corporation – the World Bank's private lending arm – are leading a wave of land grabs in Cambodia and Laos, causing widespread evictions, illegal logging and food insecurity, according to a report.

Rubber Barons shows how vast amounts of land have been acquired for rubber plantations in Cambodia and Laos by two of Vietnam's biggest largest companies, Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) and the Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG).

Everywhere in Africa the story is more or less the same: communal rights are being grossly interfered with, farming systems upturned, livelihoods decimated, and water use and environments changed in ways which are dubiously sustainable.

Liberia's silent land war has now become a war of words and placards with tension brewing daily either between individuals and families or companies and tribes or clans.

The most recent U.N. demographic projections show world population growing to 9.3 billion by 2050, an addition of 2.3 billion people. Most people think these demographic projections, like most of those made over the last half-century, will in fact materialize. But this is unlikely, given the difficulties in expanding the food supply, such as those posed by spreading water shortages and global warming. We are fast outgrowing the earth’s capacity to sustain our increasing numbers.

About 40 ethnic activist groups are calling on the government, ethnic militias and the international community to address a surge in land-grabbing, as companies move into Burma’s ethnic regions following recent ceasefire agreements.

A consortium of Saudi groups - comprising dairy giant Almarai, grain importer Al Rajhi and Salic, the agriculture arm of the country's sovereign wealth fund - agreed to pay US $92mn to acquire Continental Farmers Group located in northern Poland and western Ukraine

Governments in African countries lease out land at low rates, which makes it attractive to investors