Foreign land hot commodity as nations seek to grow food

Much has been said in recent years about the implications of the world reaching Peak Oil — when demand outstrips supply. However, the growing discussion these days is about Peak Soil.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, Kuwait and Egypt, which import a lot of food, have apparently lost confidence in the international trading system since the ethanol boom in 2007-2008 and the flood of investment money that poured into the commodity markets, sending staple food prices through the roof.

It wasn’t the spike in commodity prices that scared them; it was the decision by several exporting nations to stop selling at any price. So instead of buying commodities, they’re buying or leasing farms, producing their own grain and shipping it home.

The Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has estimated that between 15 million and 20 million hectares of farmland — an area that approximates a third of the Prairie agricultural land base — worth between $20 billion and $30 billion has been traded globally since 2006.

It’s not just the land they’re after. The chairman of Nestl