Archive for April, 2011

The New Geopolitics of Food: Food Wars Of The 21st Century?

Courtesy of Foreign Policy, an interesting report on the geopolitics of food, namely how high prices are spawning land grabs and ousting dictators from the Middle East to Madagascar.  As the article notes: In the United States, when world wheat prices rise by 75 percent, as they have over the last year, it means the […]

Read more »



The Great African Land Rush

Courtesy of The Atlantic, an interesting article on how speculators, among them Muammar Qaddafi, are snatching up much of Africa’s arable soil — enough acreage to cover Norway in a single year — driving up food prices and leaving locals homeless.  As the report notes: “Hours into the interior of this agrarian nation sits a […]

Read more »



Red China Eyes Ukraine’s Black Earth

Via The Financial Times, an article on China’s hunger for natural resources is taking them to Ukraine: Chinese  investors are looking to buy agriculture land and agribusinesses in Ukraine, as they widen their global hunt for natural resources. But given the bureaucratic challenges of investing int Ukraine, not least restrictions on land ownership, can even […]

Read more »



A Massive Land Grab in Papua New Guinea?

Via Radio Australia, a report from a leading Australian academic of a massive land grab happening in Papua New Guinea: “…In a paper to be delivered at a conference in London Australian National University Associate Professor, Colin Filer, says 5 million hectares of customary land has passed into the hands of national and foreign corporations […]

Read more »


  | 
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.