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 »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 »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 »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 »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 […]
Read more »Via Observer Research Foundation, a look at the UAE’s and Saudi Arabia’s agricultural diplomacy in Africa: With scarce arable land and water resources, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia depend heavily on food imports, as do other Gulf countries. The COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine war, and negative impacts of climate change […]
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