I urge the Government to stop conceding to foreigners the natural resources and the national reserves of the peoples of Ethiopia, and to begin helping Ethiopian farmers preserve and farm their lands organically.

Principles for responsible agriculture investment are stock templates, designed to deflect the fallout from a growing number of media reports of land deals between investors and governments.

Indore-based Ruchi Group plans to grow oil palm in Cambodia on 20,000 ha.

Local food companies are not financially capable of investing in farmlands abroad to grow basic staples that would insulate them from soaring prices of raw materials, they said on the sidelines of Gulfood 2011.

Modern machineries of all sorts, owned and run by agri-companies, are turning the soils inside out, destroying forests and beginning to pollute the environment to get more production.

Despite opposition from Ethiopia's President and environmental authorities, a rainforest area providing livelihood to an indigenous people has been leased out to make tea plantations.

Land grabbing poses no harm on the environment or on the local community, says Saudi billionaire Sheik Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi who is seeking to expand his farmland in Ethiopia from 10,000 hectares to 250,000 hectares.

The suffering of farmers in Ethiopia is going from worse to the worst as a result of inequitable land acquisitions, better called “neo-colonial land grabbing”, by foreign investors.

Foreign investors see Africa as a breadbasket. Done well, investment could help with African hunger but create food security for the rest of the world.

Ethiopian President Girma Woldegiorgis and the country’s environmental regulator have both written to the Agriculture Ministry expressing concern over the sale of forestry land to foreign agricultural companies.

Ethiopia has offered 1.8 million hectares of its farmland to Indian investors that equals nearly 40 percent of the total area of the principal grain-growing state of Punjab.

In a recent letter to the Ministry of Agriculture, Girma urges the Ministry to stop giving land to an Indian company, warning that such a deal would damage Meles Zenawi’s “good reputation” on the campaign against global warming.

"All of a sudden the world is waking up and saying, 'Wow, emerging markets, food security... this asset class is going to really perform in the medium term -- the next 8-20 years,'" says new convert James Howard, manager of the Futuregrowth Agri-Fund

Chadha Agro Plc, one of India’s giant operators in agro business, is set to receive 100,000 ha of Oromian land (an area nearly twice the size of Singapore country) in addition to the 300,000 ha of land given to various other Indian investors recently.

Several African leaders have bought lands in Ethiopia to develop agricultural projects or tourism resorts. They are let to bypass a 2007 ban on export of cereals, still in place for other investors.

Africa is up for sale by the acre to the highest bidder. But how can rice exports from Ethiopia to Saudi Arabia be justified?

Mr. Meles Zenawi, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, will make scheduled appearances at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, January 27

"We have set up a global food system that supports speculation. And with [such] markets, we can't get speculators out of the food business," said Lester Brown, an agricultural policy expert and founder of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute.

India's ACIL Cotton Industries said it plans to invest nearly $15 million to start contract farming of crops like coffee, pulses, oilseeds, cereals, potato, sugarcane and vegetables through lease-hold agricultural land in Brazil, Congo and Ethiopia.

In Ethiopia, resentments over land grab have already started claiming lives. The TPLF regime has already killed 10 protesting ethnic Anuak farmers and has sent thousands more to concentration camps.

The seizing of the poor farmers' land is destroying their only hope of survival on earth.

Not a single farmer has been dispossessed of his holding on account of foreign investment, blasts Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Across Africa and the developing world, a new global land rush is gobbling up large expanses of arable land.

News of the deal has aroused very vehement protest from the Sudanese Farmer’s Union and the tenants in the Gezira Scheme.

A controversial new farms policy has led to a number of arrests and the killings of 10 local farmers, say local activists.

A wikileaks cable discusses the transfer of the Lamu port deal from Qatar to China. Little word about the fate of the 40,0000 ha of farmland promised to Qatar, however.

Indian company signs an MoU with Zambia Development Agency to facilitate the acquisition of 100,000 hectares of land for agricultural development in Zambia.

Not surprisingly, the backlash from people in Africa against Indian farmland investments has begun.

Abu Dhabi's Jenaan Investment owns and leases properties in Egypt and Sudan, as well as leasing land in Tanzania, Ethiopia and the US.

Ethiopians do not need multinational food companies to improve their livelihood.