Perhaps the UN’s hand-wringing is just sentimental. Deals will be done and the rush to buy land has begun in Europe, too.

Agriculture opportunities are accessed through land purchase (for production of foodstuffs or, more recently, biofuels), through equity investments in companies associated with this theme or – as is the case for £143m Ceres Agriculture fund – through pure derivative strategies.

"We are seeing a land grab bigger than anywhere else in the world, and it has attracted a mighty cast of characters," says Kingsmill Bond, chief strategist at Troika Dialog, a Moscow brokerage firm.

As with timberland, while direct ownership and management (i.e., being a farmer), is a possibility, such a route is similarly fraught with difficulties. One of the most significant of these is the issue of diversification in the farmland itself - especially with a single investment. A well-diversified holding of farmland (row crop, permanent crop, pasture and even timber) will, therefore, not only require a significant investment, but may also involve land holdings in a number of different locations.

Gobal fund manager Schroders is launching an Agricultural Land Fund, only months after closing its USD 6 billion Alternative Solutions Agriculture Fund due to excessive investor demand.

A British entrepreneur is leasing land from smallholders in an attempt to revive the breadbasket of the former Soviet Union

Landkom has leased 165,000 acres from thousands of landowners in Ukraine and will reap its first big harvest this year.