The Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project (GCAP) commissioned a study on the creation of land banks in Ghana to facilitate the acquisition of land for commercial agricultural investment.

Rwanda is pushing for massive irrigation projects to boost agricultural production, where an investment of $200 million is needed for 35,800 hectares of farmland.

The Turkish General Directorate of Agricultural Enterprises and an institution from Sudan will establish a joint-venture company that will rent 780,000-hectares of land for the long-term in Sudan.

Over sixty parliamentarians from Central Africa met in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, to discuss how to promote sustainable agricultural investment.

What is striking is how brazen and unapologetic the New Alliance is in its quest to open up African farmland to an unprecedented wave of industrial-scale investment.

Commerce and Industry Minister Tawfiq Al-Rabiah has approved the establishment of a new East Asia Agricultural Development and Investment Company to invest in farming.

A new study puts "land-grab" deals into the context of agricultural investments more generally.

Investments in industrial scale agriculture must balanced by equitable flow of benefits to smallholder farmers

Soy farming in Argentina is often linked to land-grabbing and displacement of small-scale farmers. Aid organizations are demanding action from German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner during her trip to South America.

"Today, all patriotic Africans are weeping when they see how African governments are giving out African lands, dispossessing the African people of their ancestral land, for practically next to nothing, in the name of attracting foreign investors!", writes Abba Mahmood

Part 2 of a report from the US-based National Public Radio on landgrabbing in Africa, highlighting the case of Mozambique

Dalla Al Baraka, a Saudi conglomerate with $5 billion in annual revenue, has acquired two million acres of farmland in eastern Sudan to produce food for export to the Middle Eastern kingdom. While the investors are hoping to wean Saudi Arabia off imports from South America, such agreements cause concern among local Sudanese farmers.

The UN has proposed that countries set limits on the size of agriculture land sales to regulate the growing trend of so-called farmland grabs.

In the run up to Rio+20, the United Nation Environment Programme Foresight Panel has flagged the adverse impact of the "new land rush" as a cause of concern.

Foreign investors aren't just after land in Africa. Access to water is essential – which can bring them into direct competition with the needs of local communities

NGOs tried to get a pronouncement in the Changwon Declaration against the continued grabbing of land throughout Africa and Asia.

Saudi Star Agricultural Development is being sued by an Ethiopian state company for failure to pay for the clearing of land in the Gambella Regional State.

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.

"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.

An economic analysis of land grabbing in 25 countries by a French securities firm. Predicts the entry of Danone, Nestlé and Unilever into the fray.

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.

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.

As food aid stamped with the World Food Programme's logo is shipped to Sudan, thousands of tons of wheat and rice are shipped out.

Minister of Economy Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri said in remarks late on Tuesday that the UAE's food security strategy, which includes overseas agricultural investments, would be put before the federal cabinet for consideration.

After signing a 25-year lease from Kenya's Lands Ministry in Nairobi, Burgess made auxiliary payments to various groups to ensure that the plan could continue unhindered. Unfortunately, the people of the Luo tribe and members of other tribes in similar situations are unhappy.

Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, managing director of Karuturi Global Ltd was conferred with the award for business excellence in agribusiness in Africa by Corporate Council on Africa, for the year 2009.

Over the next couple of weeks we will see a level of political frenzy let loose on the international stage.

Across the street from the conference, human rights and farmers' groups protested sporadically throughout the three days. Small farmers' groups put on street theatre, re-enacting scenes of land-grabbing by foreign companies, with thugs bearing sticks pretending to threaten the small land owners.

More than 50 heads of state will gather for a summit later this month to look at ways of policing the extraordinary "land grab" that has seen richer countries buy up at least 20m ha of farmland in Africa in the last 18 months.

In the future it seems most likely that improved food security will be achieved through a combination of farmland investment, the traditional free flow of trade in agricultural commodities and food products, and insurance market support to underwrite all of these activities, says FDI Magazine