URUAÇU, Brazil — When the Chinese came looking for more soybeans here last year, they inquired about buying land — lots of it.Even as Brazil, Argentina and other nations move to impose limits on farmland purchases by foreigners, the Chinese are seeking to more directly control production themselves, taking their nation’s fervor for agricultural self-sufficiency overseas.
“They are moving in,” said Carlo Lovatelli, president of the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries. “They are looking for land, looking for reliable partners. But what they would like to do is run the show alone.”
I do not think that any Government should be feeling ‘too uneasy’ about foreign land purchases, after all, as the Sheikh of Dubai said “they cannot take it with them”…
However, proper rules and regulations should be introduced. Why not permit foreigners to only ‘lease’ the land and not to ‘purchase’ it outright? Just some thoughts….