March 25th, 2012
Via The Financial Times, a report that the UN has proposed that countries set limits on the size of agriculture land sales to regulate the growing trend of so-called farmland grabs. As the article notes: “…The new voluntary guidelines won the consensus of nearly 100 countries this month after three years of negotiations and are […]
Read more »Investors In Brazil Feel “Tied” On Land Issue
March 25th, 2012
Via The Financial Times, a look at a proposed amendment to laws governing foreign ownership of Brazilian land. As the article notes: When Simon Veldt’s father and his fellow Dutch immigrant farmers set up the Holambra II co-operative near Paranapanema in southeastern Brazil, the area was known as “Hunger Valley”. The co-operative, launched in the […]
Read more »March 13th, 2012
Via Conservation Magazine, a review of the upcoming book entitled, The Land Grabbers, by Fred Pearce: When Madagascan President Marc Ravalomanana was ousted in March 2009, a major factor in his new unpopularity was the deal he had made with South Korea’s Daewoo corporation, effectively handing over 1 million hectares of Madagascar’s best agricultural land. […]
Read more »The Global Land Rush: Let It Grow, Let It Grow, Let It Grow
March 4th, 2012
Via FarmlandGrab.org, a preview of an upcoming IMF report on the global land rush: THE sharp increase in international food prices during 2007–08 triggered a spate of cross-border land acquisitions by sovereign wealth funds, private equity funds, agricultural producers, and other key players in the food and agribusiness industry—fueled by mistrust in international food markets, […]
Read more »March 4th, 2012
Via The Guardian, an article on the impact that the global extraction industry expansion has had upon land and water supplies around the world. As the report notes: The global mining, oil and gas industries have expanded so fast in the last decade they are now leading to large-scale “landgrabbing” and threatening farming and water […]
Read more »Grand Prairie: Speculators Stake Claim On Canada’s Heartland
February 29th, 2012
Via Briar Patch magazine, a report on investor / speculator interest in Canada’s prairie farmland: A 21st-century land rush is sweeping the globe. Amid skyrocketing food prices, climate-related instability, and declining soil and water resources, wealthy investors have begun to size up the world’s farmland as both an investment opportunity and a hedge against food […]
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