Australia’s largest cotton property, Cubbie Station, has been sold to a Chinese lead consortium. The 93000 hectare farm in southern Queensland went into administration 3 years ago. The sale has reignited the debate of foreign ownership. The land has been sold to a consortium of Chinese textile company Shandong RuYi Scientific and Technological Group and Australian wool and agriculture company Lempriere. The mayor of Balonne Shire, Donna Stewart told ABC news “I believe the Australian Government is being very short sighted because there will come a day when we will want this land for ourselves to provide food security for our nation”.

Derek Byerlee, co-author of a recent World Bank report The Rising Global Interest in Farmland, said Australia had recently been identified as a top investment opportunity for foreign interests looking to buy undeveloped farm land, because it was politically stable, had a good land tenure system and was close to growing Asian, particularly Chinese, markets.

Meanwhile back in Europe the Romanian Agricultural Minister, Daniel Constantin, has announced plans to impose strict conditions on foreigners buying agricultural land to protect local farmers and prevent speculation. The government will either cap the number of hectares that a foreigner is allowed to purchase or request that the buyer has farming experience, Constantin says.

"We must take steps to protect Romanian farmers from the European ones, who have more money," the minister said on Monday. "But on the other hand, Romania's agriculture needs investment, so we must also create favourable conditions to attract investors."

A huge amount of land has been sold off or leased out globally in the past decade.

According to the Oxfam report, Our Land, Our Lives which was released earlier this month (October 4), an area equivalent to the size of Kenya has been sold off in Africa to international investors over the past decade in order to facilitate the growing of bio fuel and other commercial crops.

Oxfam says the land grab is accelerating and that “foreign investors have been buying an area of land the size of London every six days.”

With food prices spiking for the third time in four years, interest in land could accelerate again as rich countries try to secure their food supplies and investors see land as a good long-term bet.

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