Oman has sought the assistance of the specialised UN agency, UNCTAD, in conducting a study on food security.

These arrangements are reminiscent of “banana republics” when many African countries served as plantations for European countries -- but even those did not come with such explicit restrictions and rigidities.

Cambodia has been signing deals with Kuwait and Qatar to help develop its agricultural sector. Cambodian officials, however, refuse to disclose details of the agreements, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

"At this stage, we have not sold a single square metre to the South Africans," Rigobert Maboundou, Congo Republic's minister of agriculture said over the weekend.

If land is being unused or under-utilized in poor regions across Africa and Southeast Asia, outsourcing to capital-rich and land-poor nations could help prevent another global food crisis, but it must be fair and productive, Adam Wolfe writes for ISN Security Watch.

This would be the first time for an international set of guidelines of this kind to be formulated

Most Chinese investment in African agriculture is concentrated in southern Africa: Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi and, increasingly, Angola.

Tymoshenko is pushing through with promises to provide Libya 100,000 ha of Ukrainian farmland to produce its own wheat

"Saudi Arabia is increasingly looking for agriculture investment opportunities abroad, mostly in Africa," reports the US mission in Riyadh in May 2009

Food commodity prices remain near historic highs. Food riots destablised countries around the world last year – more than the financial crisis – and may well return. If food was ever a soft policy issue before, it now rivals oil as a basis of power and economic security.

The Egyptian government has been allocated up to 2 million acres of land in Uganda to grow wheat and corn for its domestic market

Japan will spearhead a drive at the Group of Eight summit to prevent "farmland grabbing" in developing countries and encourage responsible investing in agriculture.