MCC is playing a key role in commodifying Africa’s farmlands

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.

As African leaders, many out to line their own pockets, sign away their people's land to foreigners, the continent's people face not having enough food to eat.

The Asian Peasant Coalition and Peasant Movement of the Philippines slam World Bank’s “seven principles”.

Recently, Kanayo Nwanze, head of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, told a news conference: "It is the wrong language to call them land grabs. They are investments in farmland--like investments in oil exploration."

Friends of the Earth International warns that voluntary principles on land acquisitions announced by the World Bank and supported by the UN will legitimize and promote land grabbing in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Saudi Arabia is attempting to strengthen its position in what seems certain to be a growing competition for food among the nations of the Middle East.

New report by Oakland Institute exposes the role of the World Bank’s private sector branch, International Finance Corporation, in fueling land grabs.

"Here’s what I’m sure of: these deals will make the rich richer and the poor poorer, creating clear winners who benefit while the losers are denied their livelihoods."

"A key obstacle to more transparent debate and informed decisions by governments and investors [involved in global land transactions] is the lack of science-based information," writes Surendra Shah in Nature magazine

In Ethiopia, farms backed by foreign investors are growing with abundance, while native farmers subsist on food aid.

The global rush to acquire agricultural land in bountiful Africa evokes concern and protests.

Farmers in Africa may starve as their fields are bought to profit rich foreigners, writes Jo Chandler in The Age

Rebuttal from Ethiopia's ambassador to Japan against the article "Japan, please don't go grabbing Ethiopians' land," insisting that the government is only leasing out "unutilized land and some other land holdings by government-owned enterprises".

Countries that have recently invited India, through the ministry of agriculture, to lease land for farming include Egypt, Ethiopia, Mongolia, Senegal, Sudan, Trinidad and Tobago and Tunisia.

Japan should shun this new kind of colonization like a plague, no matter what well-paid city-based officials may say.

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.

A move by Madagascar's army-backed leader to nix a huge South Korean farming deal has exposed the risks of such ventures in Africa.

The Chinese company ZTE received an allocation of approximately 10,000 hectares of land from the Ministry of Agriculture. The deal aims at boosting production of wheat and maize, state media reported.

Saudi Arabia wants to secure supplies for sugar, rice, wheat, malt and fodder with farmland investments overseas, its agricultural minister said in remarks published on Tuesday.

The Congo ventures are not core businesses to be based in the Congo but instead, extensions of businesses located in South Africa

We call upon Ethiopians to take note of the consequences of long-term leases of farmlands to foreign governments and companies including its potential to undermine the future existence of the Ethiopian people.

The Indian construction company has decided to cultivate pongamia pinnata and edible oil seeds there

An Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens

GRAIN speaks with Nyikaw Ochalla, an Anuak living in exile, about the consequences for the Anuak and other local communities from the land grabs happening in Gambella province and the rest of Ethiopia.

"Today, the Oromo issue is not hidden from the world leaders and stakeholders. However, it is being ignored. The Meles regime is selling Oromo land on world market, although this government does not have the right to sell Oromo land."

Citadel's Karim Sadek dismisses talk of land grabbing as an “academic concern”, saying “there should definitely be a priority for the produce to be sold on the local market, if there is a paying market for it”.

"What Karuturi is doing is what Africa needs, wants and deserves," says Ram Karuturi. Yet 400 Ethiopians have signed a petition saying they received no compensation after being evicted from land taken over by Karuturi.

Over the years many Big Ideas have been imposed on Africa from outside. The latest is that the region should sell or lease millions of hectares of land to foreign investors.

Runaway farmland and borderland giveaway deals need to be publicly scrutinized to ensure transparency (detect corruption and criminality) and to make certain that private interests (sweetheart deals) have not overtaken the public interest, or secret deals are not made to harm the Ethiopian national interest.