October 1st, 2024
Via Pan African Review, commentary on how – if Africa can’t contribute to putting food on the world’s table – someone will buy or seize its lands by force and do so: Over the last year, the Liberian government has agreed to sell or has sold about 10% of the country’s land — equivalent to 10,931 square […]
Read more »World’s Biggest Deforestation Project Gets Underway in Papua for Sugarcane
September 23rd, 2024
Via Mongabay, an article on what some are calling the world’s biggest deforestation project in PNG: Land clearing has begun is what’s being called the biggest deforestation effort in the world, as Indonesia looks to establish 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of sugarcane plantations in the Papua region. One of the companies involved in […]
Read more »September 6th, 2024
Via Middle East Research and Information Project, a report on The Gulf’s ‘new scramble for Africa’: In early November 2023, shortly before the COP28 summit opened in Dubai, a hitherto obscure UAE firm attracted significant media attention around news of their prospective land deals in Africa. Reports suggested that Blue Carbon—a company privately owned by […]
Read more »Extractive Agribusinesses: Guaranteeing Food Security in the Gulf
September 5th, 2024
Via Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), a new report on extractive agribusinesses used to help ensure food security in the Arab region: Between 2014 and 2021, the total number of Arabs suffering from moderate to severe food insecurity increased from 120 million to 154 million.[1] This insecurity, however, was not distributed evenly across the […]
Read more »August 21st, 2024
Via The Economist, a look at why U.S. politicians are obsessed with mythical Chinese land grabs There was a time when Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa, had no problem with Chinese investment. In 2012, when she was the state’s lieutenant governor, she met Xi Jinping, then China’s vice-premier, on a visit to Beijing. In 2017, as governor, she […]
Read more »Chinese Solar Farms Are Crowding Out Much-Needed Crops
August 2nd, 2024
Via Wall Street Journal, an article on how China’s expanding renewable energy sector is encroaching on cropland: China installed more solar-power capacity last year than the U.S. has built in its history. Now Beijing is worried that the push may have gone too far in some places as solar farms encroach on cropland, undermining leader Xi Jinping’s goal […]
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