"We believe there are many opportunities for investment in Thailand and Philippines and for both countries in Bahrain," a Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry representative said. "Food security is one area we are trying to emphasise. We had discussions in planting and growing bananas and rice in both countries."

En quête de moyens financiers pour développer leur agriculture, les Etats africains sont prêts à céder leur foncier à des investisseurs privés. Ce qui conduit à déstabiliser les paysanneries locales, incapables de faire valoir leurs droits faute de titres de propriété.

We need non-binding principles, not regulation, to make land grabbing win-win, says Japan's Prime Minister before the G8 Summit

Videos for and against outsourcing food production to Africa

Activists say as many as 150,000 people in the Tana River delta could be displaced by the Qatari land-lease deal -- and it is not the only one in Kenya.

Les surfaces accessibles aux investisseurs étrangers ne sont plus limitées. Ainsi stipule la nouvelle loi foncière malgache applicable depuis décembre 2008.

In the case of Uganda, Egypt has shown interest in acquiring 200 hectares for wheat production.

"Ce qu’il faut absolument éviter, c’est la création de nouvelles dépendances à long terme et, surtout, l’épuisement des sols acquis par ces firmes qui pratiquent une agriculture intensive non durable." Entretien avec Olivier de Schutter.

The emergence of the farmland asset class is not without pitfalls with the provision of food always highly political and a tentative global economic recovery potentially threatened by the H1N1 flu pandemic, fund managers said.

We already see the Chinese interest in buying land in Latin America to manage a production here and, little by little, take hold of shipment logistics to China. This is both dangerous and counterproductive for Latin Americans.

The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir told the African Union summit in Libya that Sudan is willing to put its resources at the disposal of the continent.

The problems of securing for women the right to land tenure require more effort and nuanced attentiveness than is likely to happen in the face of a juggernaut of efforts to outsource food production by countries like Saudi Arabia and for bio-fuel production for countries like South Korea.