Author Archive

UAE’s Elite Agro invests in Indonesia

Via FruitNet.com, a report on a new Emirati investment in Indonesia: Abu Dhabi producer Elite Agro is reportedly set to invest in Subang, in Indonesia’s West Java province, according to a report from CNBC Indonesia. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said the plan was a continuation of the growing bilateral cooperation between Indonesia and the […]

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Farming Out: China’s Overseas Food Security Quest

Via Nikkei Asia, a look at China’s overseas food security quest: Drought has plunged water levels in China to a once-in-decades low. Some Chinese cities, reliant on hydropower, are going without air conditioning as temperatures soar and residents walk on dry riverbeds. But the most catastrophic consequences could be in store for the country’s food […]

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The Surreal Abundance of The Arctic’s Permafrost Farms

Courtesy of the New Yorker, an interesting look at the growing number of Alaskan farms, where climate change is helping turn frozen ground into farmland.  If this trend continues, there will be even more competition in the Arctic than at present: In 2010, Brad St. Pierre and his wife, Christine, moved from California to Fairbanks, […]

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China’s Newest Tactic In Mission To Ensure Food Security: IP

Courtesy of The Financial Times, commentary on how China’s mission to ensure its food security is now focused on intellectual property: At a briefing in May, Japan’s agriculture minister quantified the illicit Chinese farming of Shine Muscat grapes — a preposterously expensive fruit engineered by Japanese breeders over 18 years. The rights holders, he said, were […]

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Angola: Minister Calls For More Chinese Ag Investment

Via Macau Business.com, a report on Angola’s interest in additional Chinese agricultural investment: Angola wants more Chinese investors to grow agricultural products in the African country that can be exported to China, Angola’s minister for economy and planning, Mário Caetano João, said on Tuesday.   In an interview with Chinese state news agency Xinhua, the […]

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What Is Food Sovereignty?

Via The Good Trade, clarification around the terms ‘food sovereignty’ and ‘food security’: Have you heard the term “food sovereignty?” The movement has gathered steam in recent years, with the term regularly popping up in publications like The Guardian, Forbes, and Business Insider.  While first coined by La Via Campesina, an “international peasants movement” representing […]

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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.