The firm also aims to conclude as many as six deals by year end, including in Latin America and is scouting Africa to set up joint ventures or buy firms to develop land.

Ethiopia plans to offer 3 million hectares of land over the next two years for investors to develop large-scale commercial farms, a government official said on Thursday.

The fervour with which foreign commercial interests are forcing their agricultural 'solutions' on the African continent represents nothing more than an established endeavour to protect profits and access to resources.

Atlas Farming, which had successful farming ventures in Zimbabwe from the late 1960s until president Robert Mugabe's much criticised land reforms around 2000, has partnered with Chayton Capital to invest in large-scale farming in Zambia.

“This partnership is to create an environment for the active NGOs in Qatar to venture into our foreign investments,” said Nasser Mohamed Al Hajri, Chairman and Managing Director, Hassad Food.

Besides energy and minerals, which make up the lion's share of African exports to the BRICs countries, there is growing interest in its arable land - less than 25 percent of which is cultivated - as a source of food for export.

"Qatar is in the process of formulating a national strategy for food security that we expect to shift from a focus on land ownership in developing countries to land leases and joint ventures with the private sector in developed countries," reports the US Embassy in Doha

Emirates International Investment Company is currently in negotiations with Algerian authorities for the purchase of land to build a large-scale milk farm, Mahassil.

New code of conduct could limit aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states who have been buying vast tracts of agricultural land

The delegation hopes to conclude an agreement with the Libyan government that sets out commercial terms, including investment protection, tenure security and incentives.

These issues will be central to the World Summit on Food Security to be held from November 16 through 18 at the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

Representatives from the Ministries of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry, Finance, and Transportation will participate in a forum on November 14-15 [2009] in Addis Ababa to officially mark the beginning of a cooperative project under which Ethiopia made one million hectares of land available for Saudi private companies to develop.