All hedge funds that trade in food commodities should be required to register, the UN’s expert on the right to food Olivier De Schutter told the Press on Monday. Index derivatives should be prohibited and only “useful trading… hedging not speculation” should be allowed, in order to protect the poor and hungry from the market.

The world faces a permanent food crisis and global instability unless countries act now to feed a surging population by doubling agricultural output, a report drafted for ministers of the Group of Eight nations has warned.

Congo-Brazzaville offers free irrigation land to South African farmers exclusively for 99 years. Six government farms of 135 000ha in the Niarri Valley and another 10?million hectares have also been made available.

African states have actively encouraged Gulf investors into areas like agriculture, seeing them as a useful counterweight to China’s influence.

The deal would be the biggest lease of land in the country, which faces food shortages following severe flooding and drought during last year’s growing season.

South Korea, Asia’s second-biggest grain importer, will lend money and give technology to companies to develop farms overseas to ensure the nation’s food security after prices surged last year.

Capital Rice and Asia Golden Rice, both in Thailand, recently formed a business alliance with the Stallion Group, Nigeria's largest conglomerate, to supply rice to this major African market. The next step is to export rice-planting know-how and invest in Nigerian farmland.

The Seychelles has cancelled a large new hotel development that was to be have been built on prime agricultural land, following strong objections from local residents worried about food security.

The global food shortage coupled with vast tracts of surplus arable land in Africa made the continent the world's greatest farming opportunity, Avril Stassen, an investment adviser for Agri-Vie's $100 million (R957 million) agribusiness private equity fund, said last week.

The Philippines has signed a $300-million investment agreement with Bahrain to establish agro-fishery businesses in the country.

A short white paper on the fundamentals of the Global Agriculture Land Investments

“We are looking at the food sector, financial services, telecommunications, hospitality and transport,” Zain said, adding the firm was aiming to buy minority stakes that would give it “some extent of control”.