Two of the world's biggest land investors - Saudi Arabia and South Korea - have announced moves to improve their food security. A South Korean company is to buy 125,000 acres in Russia over the next four years and a Saudi group has set up a £600m fund to buy land.

"Je crois que les tensions seront inévitables où que ce soit, faisant des enclaves agricoles étrangères de véritables forteresses assiégées."

Le premier constructeur naval sud-coréen, Hyundai Heavy Industries, vient d'annoncer sa participation à l'effort national pour sécuriser les ressources alimentaires du pays. HHI vient d'acquérir 67,6% des parts de Khorol Zerno, propriétaire et exploitant de 10000 hectares de terres agricoles dans le grand est russe, dans la région de Khorolski.

South Korea's largest shipbuilder, Hyundai Heavy Industries, announced it will buy a big tract of Russian farmland in the latest move by Korean firms to help their crowded country secure stable food supplies.

The Saudi Cabinet on Monday approved establishing a SR3 billion agricultural investments company that will partner the Saudi private sector in the quest to achieve food security in the Kingdom.

An agricultural investment firm owned by the Saudi government will focus on investing abroad to cultivate mainly wheat, rice, sugar and soybeans, a senior agriculture ministry official said on Monday.

With food prices rising across the globe, adventurous foreign investors can find excellent business opportunities in Ukrainian agricultural sector despite (or perhaps due to?) the global economic crisis.

Des États à la recherche d'autonomie alimentaire et des grands groupes louent des millions d'hectares à l'étranger. Christian Bouquet, spécialiste en géopolitique, explique le phénomène.

Jordan will dispatch a delegation to Sudan next Thursday headed by its agriculture minister Saeed Al-Masri to discuss an agreement on developing food farms in the East African country, according to media reports.

DAEWOO logistics a le regret d’annoncer l’arrêt de ses projets de plantation à grande échelle à Madagascar pour différentes raisons

Madagascar has “definitely abandoned” a $6 billion farming agreement with Daewoo Logistics Corp., though may welcome agriculture investment in the future, Minister of Land Reform Hajo Andrianainarivelo said.

The International Finance Corporation, the World Bank's private sector lending arm, will nearly double its investment in agribusiness in Africa to $200 million during the 2009 fiscal year, a senior official said.

The agribusiness managed investment scheme sector is not expected to escape the economic downturn that has hit the financial services industry.

People planning to spend their dream holiday lounging on the idyllic palm-lined beaches of the Seychelles might have to look elsewhere after the government decided to make food security a priority over the lucrative tourist sector.

Increasingly, the land deals are coming under the scrutiny of the UN and watchdog groups such as Grain, the International Land Coalition and the IFPRI. That's because it is not obvious that they are win-win situations.