NGOs launch collective call for revamp of World Bank’s private sector arm amid accusations it has ‘lost control of the way money is spent’ and is funding land grabs in Honduras and Cambodia.

Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart is teaming up with the China National Machinery Industry Corporation to acquire a 5,000 ha dairy farm in Queensland to supply infant formula to China.

In yet another exposé of exploitative practices associated with large-scale land acquisitions, the Oakland Institute examines Socfin Agricultural Corporation Sierra Leone (Socfin), controlled by the powerful French corporate titan Vincent Bolloré

Chinese company presidents met with Australian officials and company reps in Sydney to discuss ag investments, ranging from a $25 million, 20,000 ha cotton farm to a $350 million farmland purchase in ­Western ­Australia and Queensland.

Foreign interests into the South Sudan pie have managed to secure some 5.74 million hectares of land for agribusiness concerns namely agriculture, forestry, biofuels, eco-tourism and carbon trading.

"We support continued efforts to develop principles for investment in the agricultural sector undertaken by the World Bank, regional development banks, FAO, UNCTAD, and IFAD," say G8 heads of state.

Multinational food companies have come under fire for buying up farmland in developing countries by activists holding a forum in parallel to the UN Hunger Summit.

As millions in public money flows towards the planting of trees, some are also raising concerns about the environmental credentials of many schemes.

Organisations call for a halt to IFC’s financing of industrial agriculture as it undermines the diversified, agroecological food systems that support food sovereignty

A top US retirement fund and a major sugar producer have found themselves embroiled in a probe into possible breaches of land-purchase rules in agricultural superpower Brazil.

Agricultural commodities trader Louis Dreyfus Company has launched a venture capital programme to invest in food and farming firm

CRR’s sustainability analysis shows that deforestation and fires have taken place on TIAA’s farmland portfolio in Brazil, enabling negative social impacts on local communities.

As evidenced in Liberia, World Bank support has gone to multinational corporations involved in vicious land grabs that have succeeded in displacing thousands of poor villagers from their ancestral lands

Lao authorities have released a villager held since 2017 for protesting the loss of land awarded by the government to a Vietnamese rubber company, but 11 others remain in detention, with another reported to have died in custody last year.

Pelo mundo, mais de 30 milhões de hectares foram adquiridos por apenas 490 proprietários. E o Brasil é um dos principais protagonistas.

Massimo Castelluci has been relieved of his post, barely a year after promising wonderful things to the workers and communities of Ndaiel, Senegal

The so-called ‘Blood Sugar crisis’ may be over. But representatives from the Clean Sugar campaign their there is no end in sight for their problems.

Stockholm-listed Agrokultura, with Russian sports retail tycoon Nikolay Fartushnyak now as its top investor, has yet to report a profit since it was founded in 2006.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders calls upon the authorities of Cameroon to put an end to all acts of harassment against Besingi and all other human rights defenders in Cameroon.

Agriculture has scarred some big hitters in the investment world. Many are now wary of a sector that is at the mercy of fickle weather, political risk and quixotic governments.

Since Jane Mendillo took over the endowment in July 2008, Harvard’s holdings of forests, farms and other natural resources in Brazil as well as in New Zealand and Romania have grown to about 10 percent of the portfolio -- more than $3 billion -- and she wants to add more.

From the World Bank to pension funds, efforts are under way to regulate land grabs through the creation of codes and standards. Rather than help financial and corporate elites to "responsibly invest" in farmland, we need them to stop and divest.

Investment managers meeting at the Waldorf Astoria in New York said rising US farmland prices were making it harder to find quality land and high returns, and a lot of capital flow is moving to developing nations.

Corporate control of Australia’s farmland is beginning to ruffle feathers among some of the country’s primary producers.


Global food price volatility will be the focus of World Food Day celebrations in Rome on Monday which will also address the issue of massive farmland purchases by rich countries in the developing world

Harassment and threats abound in areas where land grabbing is taking place.

A US Department of Agriculture-led investment scanning of potential business matches in the Philippines has identified $330 million worth of prospects in agriculture, with large tracts of land offered along the pattern provided to Saudi Arabian business groups

The Ghana Green Guard USD$25 billion climate futures initiative is a public-private collaborative partnership that will generate over 305 million carbon credits across 12 million hectares with projects based on reforestation, regenerative agriculture and other activities.

In Congo-Brazzaville, tree planting projects intended for carbon markets have proliferated over the past four years, with large-scale monocultures initiated by oil companies under the seductive term of carbon neutrality and promises of job creation for communities.

With these acquisitions, Vectr Holdings’ farming operations in Romania now encompass roughly 27,000 hectares of agricultural land.