Via Mongabay, a report on one village in Cameroon’s efforts to battle a Belgian palm oil conglomerate: Mbonjo sits in the heart of Cameroon’s country’s largest oil palm and rubber-producing region. In 2000, state-owned oil palm plantations around the village were acquired by Société Financière des Caoutchoucs (Socfin), a Belgian holding company that operates palm […]
Read more »Via Terra Daily, a report on land sales which are fueling tropical deforestation: Large-scale land buys are fueling deforestation across the tropics, according to a new study. When researchers analyzed the kinds of land acquisitions most associated with forest losses, they found purchases made with the intent of establishing new single-species tree plantations, whether for […]
Read more »Via The Economist, an article on how big soya and beef firms are leading causes of Amazon deforestation: The world’s emissions of carbon dioxide may fall by 7% this year because of lockdowns in response to the pandemic, according to Nature Climate Change, a journal. Brazil is a glaring exception. Its emissions will rise by 10-20% […]
Read more »Via Farm Weekly, a report on sustained global interest in Australia’s farmland: INSTITUTIONAL investors have continued to find Australian agricultural assets appealing, according to Colliers International. The real estate company, which specialises in large-scale, high value asset transactions and whose clients are commonly corporate farmers and investors, released a research and forecast report which said […]
Read more »Via Vanity Fair, a look at one example of how Brazil’s richest landowners have seized more property than all the land in Spain, England, France, and Germany combined: The farmers arrived before dusk, setting up camp in the tall grass. There were 25 of them, and for months they had been attempting to occupy a sprawling […]
Read more »Via The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, an article examining how – when Gulf nations face food, security, and water scarcity issues – one response is to seek lucrative agricultural investments in fertile African lands: Soaring temperatures, sun-baked earth, and dwindling water supplies: the Arabian Gulf’s blistering hot summer this year was, for many, a […]
Read more »