July 31st, 2010
Via The Financial Times, an article on the recent World Bank report on the global farms race. As the article notes: “…Investors in farmland are targeting countries with weak laws, buying arable land on the cheap and failing to deliver on promises of jobs and investments, according to the draft of a report by the […]
Read more »Africa + Middle East = Agricultural Success?
July 25th, 2010
Via TradeArabia, a recent report on the logical link between Middle East investment and African agricultural potential. As the article notes: “…Africa’s untapped agriculture potential make it an ideal partner for resource-constrained Middle Eastern countries that seek to improve their food security, a new report from Standard Chartered Bank said. The African continent is relatively […]
Read more »July 21st, 2010
Via Le Monde, an article focused on Ukraine’s agricultural potential and international interest in such. As the report notes: “…In a few years’ time Ukraine could regain its position as a global breadbasket, realising the huge agricultural potential of its famous chernozem (black earth), one of the most fertile soils in the world. Agriculture is […]
Read more »The Dangerous Geopolitics of Food Scarcity
July 14th, 2010
Courtesy of Treehugger, an interesting report by Lester Brown on the politics of food and food scarcity. As the article notes: “…[the] dangerous geopolitics of food scarcity is emerging in which individual countries, acting in their narrowly defined self-interest, reinforce the trends causing global food security to deteriorate. This began in late 2007 when wheat-exporting […]
Read more »June 3rd, 2010
Via XinhuaNet, a report that Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province has leased 426,667 hectares of land in Russia to grow crops. As the article notes: “…As China’s northernmost province, Heilongjiang shares a 3,038-kilometer-long border with Russia. The province has cooperated with Russia in agriculture, including farming, breeding and agricultural-products processing, the commission’s statement said. Mudanjiang, a […]
Read more »Middle Eastern Food (In)Security
May 31st, 2010
Via Seed Daily, an ominous report on the status of Middle Eastern food security. As the article notes: “…The scramble by Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states to secure strategic food supplies by buying up vast tracts of farmland in Africa and Asia won’t be enough to stave off a surge of food imports […]
Read more »