Agriculture: Rise as an investment.

Agriculture has returned to the forefront of investor portfolios with growing threats such as climate change and food security at the top of the global agenda. Now, more than ever, investments in primary staple foods such as Rice are receiving attention from governments, investors, traders and farmers

 The majority of all rice produced comes from Thailand, Vietnam, India, China, Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan and Myanmar/Burma. Asian farmers still account for 92-percent of the world's total rice production. More than 550 million MT of rice is produced annually around the globe.
Even as rice as a commodity is deeply associated with such a large number people, it continues to be a very thinly traded commodity with less than 8% of production entering global trade. In comparison, 10-12% of corn, around 18% of wheat and nearly 30% of soybean enter global markets. World rice trade is expected to surge 5% to 31.3 million MT in 2010 from 29.7 million MT in 2009.
Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Burma and Cambodia are members of the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (Acmec), which carries out measures to boost border trade.
Among those measures is a contract farming scheme in which entrepreneurs can invest in farming in neighboring countries and import produce to their own countries without paying tariffs.
Laos also supports Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's plan to set up a Rice Trader Association among the Acmec members. It would stabilize rice prices, not attempt to collude in price-setting.
Each country has its own production methods and costs, so stabilizing prices might be difficult.
The Saudi Binladin Group’s $4.3 billion planned investment in Papua, east Indonesia, to develop rice fields has stalled because of problems acquiring land from local people
Saudi Arabia and other countries, including China, are acquiring farm land abroad as part of their strategy of achieving greater food security, following sharp increases in food prices in 2008.
An agriculture ministry official said Binladin is considering acquiring up to 2 million hectares of farmland in Papua to grow basmati rice, which is not popular in Indonesia.