The focus of this year's World Water Day is on water and food security, and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility launches a campaign to educate institutional investors on the impacts of large acquisitions of farmland in the global South.

To date, Citadel Capital has invested US$ 25 million in the Concord farm project, which makes us by far one of the largest investors in South Sudan outside the oil industry.

A unit of Egyptian private equity firm Citadel Capital plans to cultivate up to 40,000 acres of farmland in South Sudan to sell staple foods such as maize in the newly-independent nation.

Trigon Agri, in its second acquisition this month , raised its Black Sea landbank nearly to 200,000 hectares, in a deal the farm operator said would "substantially upgrade the quality" of its Russian portfolio.

As more and more companies flock to the country to lease large tracts of land, murmurs of protest and unrest are cropping up among local populations who are unhappy with the way the deals are done.

The Pakistan government should table a bill in the parliament before proposing further selling of agricultural lands in order to have a legitimate regulatory mechanism in place, says economist.

Australian Liberal senator Bill Heffernan has described as "bullshit" his party's proposed policy for more scrutiny of overseas companies buying into Australian agriculture because it ignored the real threat posed by foreign government-owned funds buying up farmland.

About 900 million hectares of arable land are not properly utilised for agriculture in Africa's rich soil, says Indian Minister of Industry, Commerce and Textile, Mr Anand Sharma.

Kenana, Sudan's biggest sugar company, is planning to raise $200 million listing a quarter of its shares in Hong Kong in December, to finance new projects.

Two articles on large-scale land investment in Ethiopia examine the implications for smallholder farmers and pastoralists.

Ethiopia's Ministry of Agriculture has suspended the provision of land for investment purposes due to self-assessment.

"The CFS is expected to adopt the VGs in May. Then for part two: laws with an enforcement mechanism. National laws, because that is where it really counts. And multilateral rules, too, to discipline foreign investors," write IATP.