The Japanese government is drawing up plans to finance investments in agricultural production in developing countries, in the latest sign of nervousness about food security among countries that import agricultural commodities.

Emirates Investment Group is in the process of acquiring farmland in Pakistan to export more food to the Gulf region and is seeking international partners, a company executive said on Tuesday.

“African countries have not been in a reasonable bargaining position,” AU Agriculture Commissioner Rhoda Peace Tumusiime told Reuters in an interview at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. “The pace of the trend was very fast and they didn’t envisage that there should be benefits to the community.”

Foreign investors in overseas farmland “should not have a right to export” during a food crisis in the host country, a government-backed think tank is to propose on Thursday, in the first code of conduct to address the so-called land grabbing trend.

Growing food in foreign lands has a long history. But the 21st century version of outsourced agriculture presages something fundamentally new.

On the eastern coast of Kenya, controversy erupts over plans to turn a biodiversity hotspot into farmland for Qatar.

Saudi officials I have spoken to seem to be aware of the minefields their schemes could ignite.

Saudi Arabia's desire to secure its sources of food for its citizens by establishing overseas joint ventures in food production has received a positive response from a Philippine trade delegation.

Japan is considering providing loans from a government-owned bank for companies to purchase and lease farmland abroad, Munemitsu Hirano, counsellor at the international affairs department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said.

So does this mean farming might now be a good place to make money? Some investors certainly think so, according to ETF Securities.

The issue of food security is getting higher on Riyadh’s priority list.

Some Gulf countries may now be realising the importance of offering direct loans to African countries as a means to increase Arab investment.