Osun State governor Rauf Aregbesola signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Syncop Corporation of Korean for a $400 million investment deal in food production and other areas of agriculture.

Obtala's agriculture business Montara Continental intends to plant groundnuts, sunflower, sesame, soya and seed maize on 20,000 hectares.

There is a lot of focus on the growing global population and what it means for food demand. One result sees investors taking notice of returns on resources that provide food, including farmland.

The growing number of complaints from local communities, civil society organizations and the media about the activities of foreign investors in the country has got the government to unveil an investment monitoring unit

Cofco Ltd., China’s largest grains trader, said it is seeking overseas acquisitions to help secure supplies of commodities including soybeans, wheat and sugar as rising domestic incomes spur faster food demand growth.

The relationship between landowners and land on which people are living is not so clear in Africa, so the first thing we have to do is to survey lands and clarify the ownership of the land, says Korean diplomat.

Labour leader Phil Goff says, if elected as government on 26 November, his party would reverse the current approach so overseas buyers of farms would have to prove they offer additional value to the country.

Thousands of stories like John B Keane’s The Field in the 227 million hectares sold or leased in large-scale land deals since 2001.

"I'm betting the current furor will end up dying down once Congressman Beto Faro's report is in. He's the Workers Party legislator in Brazil, tasked with measuring just how much foreigners control Brazilian farmland."

More than 613,000 hectares of Australia's NSW's agricultural land is owned by UK-based investors, compared with 227,300 ha owned by Korean interests and 55,560 ha by US investors.

Workshop at Uppsala University, Sweden, on 21 October 2011

The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights is being invited to visit Indonesia in connection with MIFEE, the Merauke Integrated Energy and Food Project in West Papua, a mega-project of 1.6m ha for agri-business purposes.