In the Philippines, a land lease hotspot like Cambodia or Laos, a series of high-profile deals has clashed with long-running demands for agrarian reform including land redistribution.

The government should enhance rural funding and at the same time curtail federal non-development expenditures in order to avoid leasing country’s land to foreign investors.

A group of private Saudi investors said they plan to start a company with $533.3 million capital that will invest in farm projects mainly abroad. First projects may be with Ghana, Turkey and Kazakhstan.

The Bangkok Post asked two prominent figures to discuss the pros and cons of foreign farmland ownership.

Saudi Arabia's Hail Agricultural Development Co (Hadco) said on Monday it would look at investing in Turkey and Kazakhstan after moving into Sudan under a government plan to ensure steady food imports.

Saudi private sector company Hail Agricultural Development Co (Hadco) has picked Sudan for its first investment in farming abroad under a Saudi government scheme to ensure steady food imports, it said.

Most of the produce from the proposed project, mainly vegetables and fruits, would be exported to the Gulf. Questions have been raised on why the Government has chosen to lease the land instead of engaging local farmers to boost food security in the country.

Even as it receives a billion pounds of free food from international donors, Sudan is growing and selling vast quantities of its own crops to other countries, capitalizing on high global food prices at a time when millions of people in its war-riddled region of Darfur barely have enough to eat.

Farmland purchases by the Harvard endowment contributed to a climate of anxiety, fear, and strain on Brazilian subsistence farmers.

At the Global Landscapes Forum Investment Case Symposium land tenure was the primary issue that was repeatedly pointed to by members of the research, development and finance communities alike as the biggest risk for landscape investment.

One of the main topics at the Mining and Food Security Forum in Khartoum was Sudan’s food production potential and the need for international cooperation, especially from Arab countries.

Untold millions of small farmers and indigenous people have been thrown off their land to make way for land grabs. With them gone and their land and water used to grow crops for export, local communities are going hungry and without water.

Korean diplomats are working hard to help Daewoo Logistics regain a huge land deal it lost after a 2009 coup d’etat in the island nation in anticipation of new elections slated for the first half of this year, according to Viru News

Companies investing in land in Africa and elsewhere need guidelines to ensure the human rights and dignity of local communities are protected

If you are a small farmer in a developing country, and there is a big agricultural land investment deal going down in your neighbourhood, you could become part of it and make money in several ways, said a new UN-backed study.

South Africa, which became a net importer of food two years ago after two decades of net exporting, is developing African agricultural ambitions of its own.

The process of buying up large swathes of farmland in foreign countries is politically sensitive, but "beggars can't be choosers" says a senior executive at a leading Middle Eastern food commodities trading firm

Nigeria is offering to lease farmland to Gulf countries seeking food security and will allow investors to export all of their produce, the head of a private Nigerian agriculture consultancy firm said on Monday.

Investment in agriculture is soaring. So, worryingly, is distrust of markets and trade.

Because of the political sensitivity of the modern-day land grab, it is often only the country's head of state who knows the details. Der Spiegel investigates.

Tanzania is offering more than 60,000 hectares of fertile land to both foreign and domestic companies to invest in large-scale farming at Mkulazi area in Morogoro.

An overview of land grabbing in Africa and Asia as lessons for Sri Lanka. In September 2016 the International Criminal Court called land grabs as a crime against humanity and this is an area that Sri Lanka’s lawyers are advised to further look into.

Three years later after going into receivership, hopes of revival are a withering prospect and hundreds of families that once formed a thriving community revolving around the Naivasha-based company are living in squalor.

The collaboration of the two companies is part of the overall development of Amatheon’s already 40 000 hectares titled farm block.

The Ministry of Agriculture is working on a draft bill for the formation of an autonomous federal agency, which would administer land available for agricultural investment in Ethiopia.

Gulf states are following in the footsteps of China and looking beyond their shores to make heavy investments in agriculture

Hassad Food knows how to shop. The $1b subsidiary of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund finalised a $500m agreement last year to grow wheat & rice on 100,000 ha in Sudan and has announced plans to invest $700m worldwide this year.

"Land grabbing" will be featured on the agenda of a high-level conference on the rice industry in November 2010 in Vietnam, where 17 agricultural ministers will be in attendance.

TADCO subsidiary has already arranged leases in Cambodia, Vietnam, Pakistan and the Philippines for export production of aromatic and long grain basmati rice.

Saudi Arabian investors are looking to expand their agricultural investments in the United States to secure long-term food supply because of water shortages in the desert kingdom, Saudi officials said on Thursday.