March 16th, 2021
Via Newsweek, an article on China’s food security issues and what that could mean for the global farms race: Consider U.S. farmers happy. They are exporting record volumes of products to China. Shipments of soybeans, corn and pork are bringing smiles back to the American heartland. Or, to put this another way, Beijing is effectively[…]
Read more »Africa’s Land Rush
March 15th, 2021
Via Oxfam, commentary on Africa’s land rush: Remember the global riots over food set off by sharp spikes in commodity prices in 2008? The biofuel hype as THE solution to dirty oil? And the financial crisis that drove investors to look for alternative assets to invest their dollars, euros and pounds? As these developments came[…]
Read more »March 8th, 2021
Via Mongabay, a report on a plan to clear millions of hectares of forest in Papua New Guinea: Natural forests spanning 1.1 million hectares (2.7 million acres) in Indonesia’s Papua region have been slated for conversion, mostly for oil palm plantations, according to a new report by a coalition of NGOs. For now, more than[…]
Read more »Kazakh President Bans Foreign Ownership Of Farmland
February 26th, 2021
Via Al Jazeera, an article on a recent Kazakh presidential order banning foreign ownership of farmland: Kazakhstan will permanently ban foreigners from owning or renting farmland in the vast Central Asian nation, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has said, ending a lengthy dispute that once prompted anti-government protests. Kazakhstan is a major producer of grains, oilseeds and[…]
Read more »February 22nd, 2021
Via Transcend Media, commentary on issues related to land and farming in developing nations: The week has been an interesting one full of global challenges, with escalating violence propagated by the military coup in Myanmar, resulting death of a young protester from a bullet wound[i], the SARS Cov-2 lockdowns and curfew Netherlands[ii], with an exponential[…]
Read more »Saudi Arabia Triples Agriculture Investments Abroad
January 22nd, 2021
Via Gulf News, an article on Saudi Arabia’s Agricultural Development Fund: Saudi Arabia’s Agricultural Development Fund loans have grown by 300 per cent since 2016 to be worth more than 3.7 billion riyals, a senior official said. Munir bin Fahd Al Sahli, Director General of the Agricultural Development Fund, said part of the fund’s investments[…]
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