Cotton Diplomacy: China’s Investment in Tajikistan Agriculture

Via Global Voices, a look at China’s investment in Tajik agriculture: Even though Tajikistan is considered an agricultural country, only six percent of its territory is arable land, the rest is mountainous. Despite this, agriculture provides 20 percent of the country’s GDP and over 45 percent of the country’s employment.  Tajikistan is one of the world’s top exporters of raw cotton. In 2022, […]

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Russia Wants BRICS To Become OPEC For Wheat

Via Nikkei Asia, a report on Putin’s proposal for a BRICS grain exchange: Russia is leading a charge to turn the BRICS economic bloc into the top influencer of global grain prices. In a declaration following a three-day BRICS summit this week in Kazan, Russia, a call for the end of “illegal sanctions” against members […]

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Carbon Colonialism and Land Grabs: Africa Must Eat or Be Eaten

Via Pan African Review, commentary on how – if Africa can’t contribute to putting food on the world’s table – someone will buy or seize its lands by force and do so: Over the last year, the Liberian government has agreed to sell or has sold about 10% of the country’s land — equivalent to 10,931 square […]

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World’s Biggest Deforestation Project Gets Underway in Papua for Sugarcane

Via Mongabay, an article on what some are calling the world’s biggest deforestation project in PNG: Land clearing has begun is what’s being called the biggest deforestation effort in the world, as Indonesia looks to establish 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of sugarcane plantations in the Papua region. One of the companies involved in […]

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Laundering Carbon—The Gulf’s ‘New Scramble for Africa’

Via Middle East Research and Information Project, a report on The Gulf’s ‘new scramble for Africa’: In early November 2023, shortly before the COP28 summit opened in Dubai, a hitherto obscure UAE firm attracted significant media attention around news of their prospective land deals in Africa. Reports suggested that Blue Carbon—a company privately owned by […]

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Extractive Agribusinesses: Guaranteeing Food Security in the Gulf

Via Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), a new report on extractive agribusinesses used to help ensure food security in the Arab region: Between 2014 and 2021, the total number of Arabs suffering from moderate to severe food insecurity increased from 120 million to 154 million.[1] This insecurity, however, was not distributed evenly across the […]

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About This Blog And Its Author
Seeds Of A Revolution is committed to defining the disruptive geopolitics of the global Farms Race.  Due to the convergence of a growing world population, increased water scarcity, and a decrease in arable land & nutrient-rich soil, a spike of international investment interest in agricultural is inevitable and apt to bring a heretofore domestic industry into a truly global realm.  Whether this transition involves global land leases or acquisitions, the fundamental need for food & the protectionist feelings this need can give rise to is highly likely to cause such transactions to move quickly into the geopolitical realm.  It is this disruptive change, and the potential for a global farms race, that Seeds Of A Revolution tracks, analyzes, and forecasts.

Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has long held a keen interest in natural resource policy and the geopolitical implications of anticipated stresses in the areas of freshwater scarcity, biodiversity reserves & parks, and farm land.  Monty has lived, worked, and traveled in more than forty countries spanning Africa, China, western Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Southeast & Central Asia, and his personal interests comprise economic development, policy, investment, technology, natural resources, and the environment, with a particular focus on globalization’s impact upon these subject areas.  Monty writes about freshwater scarcity issues at www.waterpolitics.com and frontier investment markets at www.wildcatsandblacksheep.com.