February 2012 workshop in Ouidah, Benin brought together over thirty participants from farmer organisations and NGOs in West and Central Africa to share experiences and analysis of land grabs.

The Indonesian government’s long-discussed plan to launch a massive food estate in Merauke, Papua, in a bid to boost the nation’s food production is facing uncertainty amid land acquisition problems, a top ministry official says.

In an effort to improve food security, the government has been investing in agriculture projects abroad, especially in Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, Pakistan, Romania, Sudan and the Americas, to secure food supplies and safeguard against market fluctuations.

No evidence to support the idea that “China” was intending to create an agricultural colony in Mozambique, or make the Zambezi Valley into China’s rice bowl.

Foreigners currently have more than 700,000 ha of agricultural land in Romania, representing 8.5 percent of the arable land of the country, says Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The National Farmers Federation says the figures that show Australian farm land to be about 90 per cent locally owned is a small part of the picture. It's just one of three studies, with the others looking into the value of farm production.

Rural MPs, especially those from NSW and Queensland, have been fielding increasing complaints from constituents in recent months about the level of foreign ownership of Australian farms and agricultural businesses.

Richer countries that are investing in land abroad for food cultivation should also educate the poor about agricultural methods, so that food production can be increased to a level at which poor people can produce enough for investing countries as well as themselves, says Bob Geldof.

The UAE has purchased thousands of acres of arable land in Sudan to grow products for the home market, while Bahraini investors help meet demand in the kingdom from farmland bought in Thailand and the Philippines.

Government has taken action to resolve lingering speculation and strengthen transparency surrounding the degree of foreign ownership in Australian agriculture.

Egypt will soon offer to lease, for 49 years, 50,000 feddans [21,000 ha] for agri-business projects in North Sinai, the irrigation minister said -- but only to domestic investors.

Africa's untapped agriculture potential make it an ideal partner for resource-constrained Middle Eastern countries that seek to improve their food security, a new report from Standard Chartered Bank said.

"We support continued efforts to develop principles for investment in the agricultural sector undertaken by the World Bank, regional development banks, FAO, UNCTAD, and IFAD," say G8 heads of state.

Saudi Arabian Agriculture Minister Fahd Bin Abdul-rahman Bin Sulaiman Balghunaim said at the summit that Saudi Arabia was planning to invest in Algeria's agriculture, like Egypt and Sudan.

The terms of farmland deals are hardly made public. Although a theoretical possibility exists in a few cases for some transfer of technology for agricultural development, risk also exists to peasant farmers who cannot compete with well-resourced commercial farms. Take, for instance, the case of barley and oilseeds producers in Ethiopia.

A recent jump in rich country land purchases in the developing world has caught the attention of analysts in trade and human rights circles.

Land acquisitions abroad are the only viable response, Mohammed Raouf, program manager of environment research at the Gulf Research Center, and others say.

Some experts believe that the emphasis should be on overseas agricultural investments as well as a boost in trade relationships, due to the unavoidable handicaps to domestic agriculture.

The Moroccan government has pursued a strategy of leasing state-farms previously under the management of Société de Développement Agricole (SODEA). A large number of bids were made by agricultural businesses from France, Egypt, Spain and the United Arab Emirates.

A military-driven Chinese hybrid rice-for-opium crop-substitution program in the northern part of Myanmar's Shan state has resulted in four consecutive years of poor harvests and driven many ethnic-minority farmers into heavy debt or out of rice farming altogether.

In 2006, Beijing and Maputo signed a memorandum of understanding concerning the creation of a massive agricultural project in the Zambezi river valley area.

Already in conflict with local communities over land grabbing, Plantation et Huilerie du Congo (PHC) has just acquired new concessions to expand its palm oil plantations in Boteka. This deprived local communities of nearly 2,500 hectares of arable land.

Al Dahra Group is interested in 180,000 acres. Selu Ltd, another private party has eyes on 20,000. Currently, NIA has 10,000 acres under irrigation with plans to add another 10,000 in the medium term.

Efforts are underway to expand the Omi Dam for the cultivation of 4,000 hectares of rice to support the Alape Rice Mill and a partnership with Silvex International will enable full mechanized and year-round rice farming in the area.

The Deputy Minister of Agriculture says his ministry has preliminarily identified 1.2 million hectares of land with corn-growing potential, with plans to conduct comprehensive follow-up studies and evaluations.

There is an increasing demand for nature-based solutions and real assets are of particular interest to institutional asset owners. But just because something is a natural investment does not always mean it is good for the environment. Or that it is a good investment.

Buyers from the UAE have expressed interest in investing in the local agriculture sector, taking advantage of favourable climate, vast tracts of fertile land and the availability of numerous water bodies.

Golden Veroleum Liberia is not being held accountable for defying a ruling issued six years ago by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil against the company for land grabbing.

Experts say the economic forces now reshaping agriculture are similar to ones that have transformed residential real estate over the last two decades, with investors — from pension plans to well-to-do urban families — fuelling speculation and driving up real estate prices

Globe-trotting billionaire Mo Dewji made a fortune in East Africa selling palm oil, rope, and soda. Now he says he's trying to acquire 100,000 ha in Rufiji and another part of Tanzania for sugarcane and cereal plantations.