Pursuing its strategy of penetrating the Middle East market, the company has set up a special committee to study the possibility to increase exports to the region. So far, the company has signed a farming contract with Bahrain for supplying food products.
Pakistan's Ministry of Investment has decided to offer more than 7 million acres of farmland for long-term investment to the Emirates Investment Group and others. China and Saudi Arabia are also interested.
"Over the past few weeks the Saudi government has been in talks with us to lease 500,000 acres (202,400 hectares) of farmland and we are currently in the process of locating which land we could give them," Tauqir Ahmad Faiq at the ministry of agriculture, said
Mauritius has secured a large area of land in Mozambique to produce hybrid rice for export back hom through a joint venture with a Singaporean company.
In April, concerns over farmers’ rights led the government of Pakistan’s Balochistan province to block direct deals between United Arab Emirates-based private investors and farmers.
Russia is in talks with Japanese companies to secure investment in Siberian farmland and Pacific ports that would allow the world's No. 3 wheat exporter to carve a greater share of Asian markets, a senior grain official said.
The World Bank Group’s Investment Climate Advisory Service is developing a new set of indicators called the Investing Across Borders project.
"They are selling off African land for a song," said Ndiogou Fall, president of the executive committee for the Network of Peasant Organizations and Producers in West Africa (ROPPA), which is calling for dialogue between governments, producers and African and foreign investors.
Palong Piroomyu, a 52-year-old farmer from Bang Len in Nakhon Pathom province, is preparing to sell his portion of farmland to a Bangkok-based buyer. He's not concerned about who the buyers are or that some may even be quietly representing foreigners.
The Bangkok Post asked two prominent figures to discuss the pros and cons of foreign farmland ownership.
Land buying firms no longer disclose their identities to avoid tarnishing their image
Instead of offering incentives on a similar scale to local farmers, Islamabad is offering legal and tax concessions, with legislative cover, to foreign investors in the form of specialised agricultural and livestock 'free zones' and may also introduce legislation to exempt such investors from government-imposed tax bans. The most worrisome aspect of such wheeling-dealing is the government's decision to develop a new security force of 100,000 men spread across the four provinces to ensure stability of the Arab investments.
