Archive for December, 2010

Land: The New International Strategic Asset

Via Modern Ghana, an article on how land has become the new international strategic asset and how – in the report’s opinion – Africa is losing big time.  As the article notes: There are credible reports that big multinational corporations like Biofuel Africa Ltd in cahoots with corrupt politicians and traditional leaders and with the […]

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The Great Land Grab In Mali

Via The Hindu, a report on the dramatic increase in foreign investment in land deals across Africa and a close look at the Malibya deal — a 50-year lease agreed by the Malian and Libyan Presidents — which has become totemic of the fear that this new phenomenon of land grabbing will deprive subsistence farmers […]

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Bangladesh Seeking Cambodian Land Concessions

Via The Pnnom Penh Post , a report that Bangladesh is seeking to purchase 200,000 tonnes of Cambodia’s rice and has requested economic land concessions.  As the article notes: “…After the meeting with his Bangladesh counterpart Dipu Moni yesterday, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong told reporters the government of Bangladesh saw its food shortage problem as […]

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A Second Scramble For Africa?

Courtesy of The New York Times, a report on the global land rush is gobbling up large expanses of arable land.  As the article notes: Deals for farmland have involved many African nations The half-dozen strangers who descended on this remote West African village brought its hand-to-mouth farmers alarming news: their humble fields, tilled from […]

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Bangladesh: Looking Outward For Food Security

Via The Financial Express, an interesting look at Bangladesh’s concerns about future food security and the indcation that it is trying to lease/buy agricultural resources in other countries.  As the article notes: “…Land is a scarce as well as valuable resource in Bangladesh which is one of the world’s most densely populated countries. Demand for […]

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A Global Land Grab …In Japan

Via The Japan Times, a reminder that the global land grab and geopolitics of global agriculture reach out to developed countries as often as emerging markets.  As the article notes: “…When the news first broke in June that a Hong Kong-based investor had two years earlier purchased more than 50 hectares of forest in Kucchan, […]

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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.