December 6th, 2022
Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, an article on how the family company of a Putin ally and former Russian agriculture minister has become one of the biggest farm operators in Ukraine: Soon after Russian tanks rolled into eastern Ukraine, three of that country’s biggest farming operators lost tracts of land equivalent to more than […]
Read more »Farmland Values Hit Record Highs, Investors Pricing Out Farmers
November 14th, 2022
Courtesy of The New York Times, a report on how small farmers are now going up against deep-pocketed investors, including private equity firms and real estate developers: Joel Gindo thought he could finally own and operate the farm of his dreams when a neighbor put up 160 acres of cropland for sale in Brookings County, […]
Read more »November 13th, 2022
Via Statista, a visual look at the impact of land grabs worldwide: According to an analysis of the Land Matrix database, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the country most heavily affected by land grabs, defined as the buying, leasing or concession land use for commercial purposes by companies from abroad, affecting land that had previously been […]
Read more »Food and Geopolitics
November 7th, 2022
Courtesy of The Economist, a look at how armed movements disrupt food production and export: At first glance, Vladimir Putin has little in common with an Ethiopian foot-soldier. One man has palaces and nuclear weapons, the other a shack and an old Kalashnikov. Yet both illustrate a global problem: that food supplies are often disrupted […]
Read more »November 7th, 2022
Via CNN, an article on how wells are running dry in drought-weary Southwest as foreign-owned farms guzzle water to feed cattle overseas: Workers with the water district in Wenden, Arizona, saw something remarkable last year as they slowly lowered a camera into the drought-stricken town’s well: The water was moving. But the aquifer which sits below the small desert […]
Read more »Preventing Fish Wars
November 2nd, 2022
Via Oceans Futures, a report of a new initiative focused on identifying future fish-rich and fish-poor regions where conflict is likely to occur. National security organizations can use predictive analysis based on climate, fisheries, and geopolitical data to inform government defense, security, and intelligence resource allocation in marine and coastal sectors: Now more than ever, fish […]
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