In the last four years, an area the size of Germany has been bought or rented to produce food and fuel in Africa. But not by Africans, nor for Africans, say critics.

Parliament yesterday approved a resolution calling on the government to get the EU to extend a ban on the purchase of farmland by foreigners for another three years. The current moratorium will end in 2011.

Three options both governments were looking at are whether Egyptian investors would own and cultivate farmland, whether land would be owned in partnership with Egypt and Uganda, or whether land would be owned as a concession right.

Foreign investors must avoid provoking resentment as they buy and lease farmland from developing nations by using local manpower instead of industrialised agriculture, the head of the UN's IFAD said.

Over the years many Big Ideas have been imposed on Africa from outside. The latest is that the region should sell or lease millions of hectares of land to foreign investors.

Emphasis is given to property rights and the need to “strengthen land rental and sales markets” – which will give ammunition to those critical of the Bank’s involvement in ‘land-grabbing’.

Runaway farmland and borderland giveaway deals need to be publicly scrutinized to ensure transparency (detect corruption and criminality) and to make certain that private interests (sweetheart deals) have not overtaken the public interest, or secret deals are not made to harm the Ethiopian national interest.

Two years ago, the Sarhad Chamber of Agriculture, NWFP, Pakistan was contacted by investors from the Gulf states through a letter showing interest in acquiring farmlands on lease under the corporate farming being introduced by the government.

Saudi-based National Agricultural Development Co (Nadec) said on Sunday it has completed procedures to obtain a 42,000-hectare farmland in Sudan.

Minerals Energy Commodities Holding (MEC) is in talks with Indonesia to lease 100,000 ha of farmland in East Kalimantan for UAE's food security.

Leopard Capital's second Cambodian fund is expected to continue investment in agriculture, as well as potentially including investment in Laos.

There are some 17 private equity funds expecting to invest $2bn-odd in agriculture in Africa in the next two years.