THE Qatar Company for Meat and Livestock Trading (Mawashi) is looking towards investing in Kurdistan since that region in Iraq is the source of Arabian livestock, which has a high demand in the region, an official said yesterday.

A United Kingdom agro-based firm, Transfor-mation Agrictech has said plan are in the pipeline to tackle the lingering food crisis in four states of Abia, Rivers, Delta and Ebonyi, through by revolutionalised agriculture, which would culminate in the massive production of rice and cassava for both domestic use and export purposes.

Small-scale farmers with limited knowledge of their rights stand to lose most as countries such as China and Saudi Arabia expand their quest for African farmland, analysts have warned.

Even as it receives a billion pounds of free food from international donors, Sudan is growing and selling vast quantities of its own crops to other countries, capitalizing on high global food prices at a time when millions of people in its war-riddled region of Darfur barely have enough to eat.

Big Money from Wall St. to the Middle East are on the hunt for farmland. Canada, especially Ontario, stands to profit but will the costs be too great?

Saudi Arabia, which is making efforts to provide food security for its nationals, can look up to Ethiopia where huge tracts of unutilized agricultural land are available for growing cereals, according to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

A bilateral agricultural venture between Cambodia and Kuwait proposed during an official visit by Kuwait's prime minister left Cambodia very positive about future cooperation, Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun said yesterday.

The United Arab Emirates is beefing up its agricultural investments in Sudan in wake of a food crisis that led to world wide protests primarily in developing nations.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that he would visit the Gulf states of Kuwait and Qatar in January to discuss rice exports in a bid to corner the Gulf market. His announcement came one day after Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Saba ended a three-day visit to Cambodia and discussed swapping his country’s technical assistance for arable land for cultivation of quality rice for Kuwait.

Goldman Sachs recently invested US$300 million to acquired full control of more than 10 poultry farms in China.

Investors are plowing money into Russia’s open lands to resuscitate the long-neglected farm sector and supply a world in ever greater need of food.

Kuwait is eyeing Cambodian farmland for investment in agriculture to produce food supply for the state, a minister said yesterday.