Archive for July, 2023

Russia: Weaponizing Global Food Security

Via Fortune Magazine, commentary on Russia’s weaponization of global food security in its war: The food crisis that occurred last year could be re-ignited. Russia has decided to withdraw from the UN-brokered deal that allowed Ukraine to export since August about 33 million metric tonnes of grains across the Black Sea and launched major attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure. If that […]

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Wagner Aside, Russia Exerts Soft Power Through Fertilizer

Via The Africa Report, a look at how Russia exerts soft power in Africa through fertilizer: Already a key security player in Africa via the Wagner Group, Russia is also leveraging its fertiliser exports. The Wagner group, active in the security and mining sectors, spearheads Russia’s presence on the continent, particularly in West Africa. But […]

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Russia Declares War on Wheat, Peas, and Barley

Courtesy of Foreign Policy, a report on how Moscow used to bang shoes to get attention, but now it blows up grain warehouses: Russia escalated its war on Ukraine’s grain exports again this week, sending wheat prices soaring and threatening to exacerbate global hunger as it seeks to blockade one of the world’s foremost breadbaskets. […]

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Indian Ban on Rice Exports Stokes Fears of Global Food Inflation and Insecurity

Courtesy of The Financial Times, a look at the impact that a recent Indian ban on rice exports – in light of the expiration of the Black Sea wheat deal – could have upon global food inflation and security: India has banned exports of non-basmati white rice, stoking fears of further global food inflation just […]

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Can China’s Farmers Cope with the Effects of Climate Change?

Courtesy of The Economist, a look at the impact that climate change may have upon Chinese agriculture: In the maize producing areas around the city of Chengde, in northern China, the heat arrived early this year. With it came drought, the worst in decades. The needle-shaped leaves on the region’s pine trees are turning brown. […]

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‘A Wake Up Call’: The World Needs to Prepare for Massive Crop Failure

Via Gizmodo, a report on the impact that climate change is having on the jet stream, and what it means crop production and the global farms race in the future: The climate crisis has changed weather patterns, and this could increase crop failure in multiple agricultural regions around the world, a new study says. In […]

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About This Blog And Its Author
Seeds Of A Revolution is committed to defining the disruptive geopolitics of the global Farms Race.  Due to the convergence of a growing world population, increased water scarcity, and a decrease in arable land & nutrient-rich soil, a spike of international investment interest in agricultural is inevitable and apt to bring a heretofore domestic industry into a truly global realm.  Whether this transition involves global land leases or acquisitions, the fundamental need for food & the protectionist feelings this need can give rise to is highly likely to cause such transactions to move quickly into the geopolitical realm.  It is this disruptive change, and the potential for a global farms race, that Seeds Of A Revolution tracks, analyzes, and forecasts.

Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has long held a keen interest in natural resource policy and the geopolitical implications of anticipated stresses in the areas of freshwater scarcity, biodiversity reserves & parks, and farm land.  Monty has lived, worked, and traveled in more than forty countries spanning Africa, China, western Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Southeast & Central Asia, and his personal interests comprise economic development, policy, investment, technology, natural resources, and the environment, with a particular focus on globalization’s impact upon these subject areas.  Monty writes about freshwater scarcity issues at www.waterpolitics.com and frontier investment markets at www.wildcatsandblacksheep.com.