June 2nd, 2018
Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, a look at how the combination of increasingly dried out pasture land, banditry in the northwest and the threat of Boko Haram in the northeast has pushed many of Nigeria’s cattle herders south, where conflicts with farming communities have risen: Bridget Ambua was gathering for Mass with residents of […]
Read more »China’s Field(s) of Dreams
May 16th, 2018
Via Future Directions International, an interesting look at Chinese overseas agricultural investment and Beijing’s dream of a new economic world order: There is a link between China’s plans to return to a position of global centrality and its food security. Beijing’s food security strategy has shifted toward overseas investments. This involves moving on from “greenfield investments”, […]
Read more »May 12th, 2018
Courtesy of National Geographic, a detailed look at why corporations are gobbling up land on the world’s hungriest continent: She never saw the big tractor coming. First it plowed up her banana trees. Then her corn. Then her beans, sweet potatoes, cassava. Within a few, dusty minutes the one-acre plot near Xai-Xai, Mozambique, which had […]
Read more »Big Land Deals Adding Stress To Nile River Basin
February 11th, 2018
Via The Conversation, a look at how big land deals add stress to the Nile River basin: The World Economic Forum has ranked water crises as the greatest global risk to economies, environments and societies in the next decade, posing even greater threats than climate change. One of the major scenes of a potential water crisis and […]
Read more »November 20th, 2017
Via Asia Times, a report on China’s acquisition of land in Hokkaido: A new book whose title translates as “Is China Turning Hokkaido into a Province of Its Own?” has caused quite a stir in Japan as the author, Miyamoto Masami (宮本雅史みやもと まさふみ), who sits on the editorial board of the Sankei Shimbun, sounded the […]
Read more »Gulf Crisis Broadens Definition of Food Security
October 21st, 2017
Via the Huffington Post, a look at how the recent Gulf crisis is affecting the definition of food security: Food security has taken on a new dimension almost five months into the Gulf crisis that pits a UAE-Saudi alliance against Qatar and for which there is no resolution in sight. The UAE and Saudi Arabia […]
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