The worldwide food shortage has spurred enthusiasm among Chinese enterprises to invest in overseas agriculture sectors. South America and Russia are likely to become the new destinations for agricultural investments from China.

The worldwide shortage of food grains coupled with high food prices is driving leading food companies and investors from the UAE to Pakistan in search of lucrative deals in the agriculture sector in of one of the world’s major food exporters.

With their huge populations, China and India exert an unparalleled force on world food markets. They are looking abroad as it becomes more difficult for them to be self-sufficient -- and the increasing demand often has disastrous consequences across the globe.

Hedge funds and investment banks are swapping their Gucci for gumboots as they bet on rising food prices by buying farms.

President Lee Myung-bak said that one possible way to secure grain supplies from overseas would be to sign a long-term land lease. The President specifically pointed to the Russian Far East.

"Only 12 percent of Mozambique's arable land is under cultivation. Mozambique's agriculture minister is actively courting international agricultural investment," reports the US Embassy in Maputo

Soaring agricultural prices, growing demand for biofuels and the growth of the Chinese and Indian economies are leading top global investment banks to buy farmland in a bid to embrace the physical commodities market.

La firma de IRSA ampliará su capital para llegar a Uruguay, Paraguay y Bolivia

Japan has steadily prepared for food security by buying 12 million hectares of croplands around the world, from Southeast Asia and China to South America. By comparison, the amount of Korea’s overseas croplands is negligible.

Liu Jianjun, a former Chinese government official who runs the Baoding-Africa business council, has contracts to farm 10,000 acres in Uganda, to build a cornflour processing factory in Kenya and for a farm project in the Ivory Coast.

The Moroccan government has pursued a strategy of leasing state-farms previously under the management of Société de Développement Agricole (SODEA). A large number of bids were made by agricultural businesses from France, Egypt, Spain and the United Arab Emirates.

Since 1999, The Ingleby Company has bought about 17 farms. The company runs just under 20,000ha of land with 130,000 stock units, most of which are sheep and cattle.