June 10th, 2025
Via Farmland Grab, a look at Pakistan’s corporate farming agenda: “Calling Cholistan a ‘barren wasteland’ to justify corporate land grabs is not just false—it erases our history,”[1] says Fazal e Rab Lund, a Saraiki Baloch leader from Cholistan in Punjab, Pakistan, with anguish about his homeland. Known traditionally as Rohi, this region was once part of […]
Read more »The Hidden Politics and Power of Agribusiness
May 31st, 2025
Via MIT Press Reader, a look at how – as food grows more global – so does the influence of the corporations controlling it: When Bayer acquired Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018, it wasn’t just a mega-merger of agricultural giants — it was a tipping point in the consolidation of global food power. The deal signaled […]
Read more »May 17th, 2025
Via Yale e360, a look at how solar and wind farms are proliferating and increasingly taking up land worldwide, prompting criticism from rural communities and environmentalists. Solutions range from growing crops or grazing livestock under PV panels to putting floating solar farms on lakes and reservoirs. In California, sheep safely graze amid giant solar farms. […]
Read more »Thailand: Stop Chinese Land Grabs
March 19th, 2025
Via Bangkok Post, commentary on growing Thai concerns around Chinese land purchases: The latest report on Chinese investors buying protected forest land to expand their durian plantations is worrying. This is more than just an illegal land grab, however. Soon, the whole durian supply chain will feel the impact. As such, these blatant land grabs […]
Read more »February 14th, 2025
Via Associated Press, a report on North Dakota’s efforts to limit Chinese land purchases in its state: It’s been three years since a Chinese company’s plan to develop a swath of farmland near a North Dakota Air Force base prompted local security concerns and led to a rush of legislation across the country, but calls for restrictions keep coming. If anything, the […]
Read more »Grain Pains: Tensions With West Fuel China’s Anxiety About Food Supplies
February 14th, 2025
Via The Economist, a look at how tensions with the West are fuelling China’s anxiety about food supplies American soyabean farmers could draw some comfort from the tariffs that China imposed on an array of American imports on February 10th. Foodstuffs like theirs were not affected by China’s countermeasures against the 10% levy on Chinese imports […]
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