GRAIN recibió el “Premio Nobel Alternativo” y aprovechó la oportunidad para exigir que se detenga de inmediato el acaparamiento de tierras y que se le restituyan sus tierras a las comunidades locales.

Saudi Star Agricultural Development Plc, perhaps the biggest agro industry firm in Ethiopia, has added a big name to its roaster: Fikru Desalegn, former state minister for Capacity Building,

The palm oil industry is "at the dawn of a new period of expansion" in part thanks to increasing interest from food groups, which are moving into production to ensure supplies of an increasingly important commodity.

Under agreements with exporting countries in Africa, Europe and East Asia, GCC countries can cultivate large areas, which will pave the way for stabilizing food prices on the one hand, and reducing inflation on the other.

UK-based investors are planning a $400 million rural land fund to buy cotton and wheat properties in eastern Australia.

“We have finalised deals with four big agro companies in India for joint ventures for different crops that we are looking at growing – rice, maize, oil palm and sugarcane,” says Karuturi.

United Arab Emirates is interested to cultivate agricultural goods in Pakistan and is also ready to make small dams for irrigation on the condition agricultural goods from Pakistan should not be stopped exporting to UAE.

The 19th century had the Great Scramble for Africa, when developed nations raced for several decades to lay claim to new territories and their riches. This century may yet be known as the Great Selloff of Africa.

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

The 6,000 hectare farm in Nasarawa, one of Nigeria's main rice growing belts, is expected to yield 36,000 tonnes of milled rice annually at its peak.

Report from FIAN on the international conference against land grabbing which took place in Mali in November 2011

Agriterra added to the $6bn investment wave heading into West Africa palm oil by acquiring 45,000 hectares of plantation land in Sierra Leone.