"Huge tracts of unutilised agricultural land are available" writes the Ambassador of Ethiopia to the UK

Saudi Arabia has announced the arrival of the first food crop harvested in Saudi-owned farms abroad, in a sign that the kingdom is moving faster than expected to outsource agricultural production.

Reports indicate the growing Euro-Arab-Asian interest to buy land in Africa for the food security of their home population, not Africa´s. However, seldom do these reports link the the appetite for farmland and energy investment on the continent with the current global economic crises.

A group of five Saudi Arabia business men have planned to invest 1 billion Saudi riyals (some $ 266.6 million) in agricultural projects in Sudan and Ethiopia within the coming few years, Pan Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat reports.

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.

With vast tracts of land being sold in Madagascar, and Sudan and other African governments actively seeking investors in agricultural land, are we witnessing a neo-colonial land grab or will the investment result in greater food productivity to the long-term benefit of recipient nations?

Saudi Arabia, one of the world's biggest rice importers, has received the first batch of rice to be produced abroad by local investors, state news agency SPA reported on Monday.

Planning these investments was carried out according to the following agricultural investment principles and criteria...

King Abdullah received today Saudi Arabia's Minister of Commerce and Industry accompanied by two Saudi businessmen Mohammad Hussein Al-Amoudi and Abdullah Hassan Al-Masri on the occasion of the arrival of the earliest produce of their rice to the Kingdom.

To lure investment dollars, the Sudan government has removed import duties on agricultural equipment being imported into the country.

As Kenya prepares to declare a national emergency in response to food shortages, the government's agricultural policies have come under growing scrutiny. A proposed deal to lease land to the government of Qatar for agricultural use has received particular attention.

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.

A US businessman backed by former CIA and state department officials says he has secured a vast tract of fertile land in south Sudan from the family of a notorious warlord.

Dependence on oil imports may be influencing the Ethiopian government’s decision to lease farmland to Saudi Arabia

Proposals to sell off around 16,200 hectares of land in the Tana River delta to Qatar to grow vegetables and fruit in return for a new port in Lamu have again raised concerns for the future of the environmentally important area.

It has now emerged that the land in question is part of the fertile Tana River delta in Coast Province, the same stretch where plans by Mumias Sugar Company to build a sugar factory have raised objections from pastoralists claiming that their animals will lack pasture and the environment will be destroyed.

The Ethiopian government’s ambitious target of harvesting 28 million tonnes of cereals in the first three quarters of the 2007/2008 budget year has failed. Authorities seem determined to change this situation by leasing huge chunks of land to other sovereign states for mechanised farming.

Nomadic herders, rarely a priority for governments, are being dispossessed by bioethanol developments in Kenya, says Michael Taylor of the International Land Coalition (ILC), and they also depend on the “unused” land that Madagascar offered Daewoo.

The Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, returned from a visit to Qatar on Monday. His spokesman said the request for land in the Tana River delta, south of Lamu, was being seriously considered. “Nothing comes for free. If you want people to invest in your country then you have to make concessions,” the spokesman said.

Qatar has asked Kenya to lease it 40,000 hectares of land to grow crops as part of a proposed package that would also see the Gulf state fund a new £2.4bn port on the popular tourist island of Lamu off the east African country.

The initial welcome given to rich countries’ investment in African farmland by agricultural and development officials has faded as the first ventures prove to be heavily weighted in favour of the investors. The FAO warned of such a trend when it said this year that the race to secure farmland overseas risked creating a “neo-colonial” system.

Daewoo Logistics of South Korea has secured farmland in Madagascar to grow food crops for Seoul, in a deal that diplomats and consultants said was the largest of its kind.

Due to the lack of arable land in its home market, Savola must look abroad for agricultural land and has named Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia and Ukraine as target countries where it plans to buy the land necessary to grow seeds such as sunflower and corn seeds.

Some of the world's richest nations are coming to grow crops and export the yields, hoping to turn the global epicenter of malnutrition into a breadbasket for themselves.

GCC countries face growing constraints in agricultural capacity. Structural factors are exacerbating pressures on food prices. A new report from Standard Chartered supports additional investment in agriculture.

Alarmed by exporting countries’ trade restrictions, importing countries have realised that their dependence on the international food market makes them vulnerable not only to an abrupt surge in prices but, more crucially, to an interruption in supplies.

The race by food-importing countries to secure farmland overseas to improve their food security risks creating a “neo-colonial” system, the United Nations’ top agriculture official, Jacques Diouf, has cautioned.

Cru, a small specialist fund management firm, recently launched a Malawi-based fund called Africa Invest. The fund has made an initial investment of £2m in 2,000 hectares of land that’s producing paprika for western supermarkets. With land prices starting at £800 per hectare (compared to £10,000 in the UK) it’s relatively easy to amass large farms that can be upgraded with new technology, mechanisation and better production methods. According to Cru, annual returns on capital should exceed 30 to 40 per cent.

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.