The Brazilian Government is to introduce restrictions that will prevent foreigners from owning agricultural land and which could also result in land currently owned by foreign companies being seized, according to the Agrarian Development Ministry.

Denise Mantovani, spokesperson for the Ministry, confirmed what Minister Guilherme Cassel had told business newspaper Valor Economico and she confirmed that representatives from several ministries were preparing a constitutional amendment to further restrict foreign ownership of land in Brazil.

Cassel said: "We do not need foreigners to produce food here in Brazil and this is the policy of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Foreigners often bypass that rule by setting up companies in Brazil which are controlled abroad to purchase land here. I am not a xenophobe but our land is finite. The population grows and demands food.”

In 2008 ten million acres (four million hectares) of land had been registered by foreigners and between 2002 and 2008 that foreigners invested $2.43bn in Brazilian land purchases.

Cassel said: “We are going to draw up an amendment that will make it clear that foreigners can invest here, except in land."