Via African Arguments, a look at how land grabbing is not just back with a vengeance. It is taking on new guises such as carbon offsets, green hydrogen schemes, and other “green grabs”: In recent years, Africa has been at the epicentre of an alarming global trend: the land squeeze. The 2007-8 global financial crisis unleashed […]
Read more »Courtesy of The Financial Times, a report on the over-reliance and pending constraint of Russia fertilizer on European agriculture: Europe is “sleep walking” into becoming dependent on Russian fertiliser, just as it did with gas, says one of the largest producers of crop nutrients. Nitrogen fertilisers, which are important to plant growth, are made using […]
Read more »Via Fast Company, a look at the dark side of solar power: Some of America’s most productive farmland is at risk: Dave Duttlinger’s first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen. About 445 acres of his fields near […]
Read more »Via Asia Times, a look at how Moscow has leveraged disruption of the Ukraine war to weaponize food supplies while angling to use BRICS to muscle US and Australia out of Africa: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “grain diplomacy” continues to cause headaches for the European Union while potentially reshaping global trade dynamics and markets more […]
Read more »Via LandDesk, a report on international destinations of U.S. hay that is grown with limited U.S. water: Pretty much every time I write about the amount of Colorado River water that is consumed to irrigate alfalfa and hay, readers respond with a comment or question about how much of the alfalfa — and therefore Colorado […]
Read more »Via The Atlantic, a report on how Gulf princes, the safari industry, and conservation groups are displacing the Maasai from the last of their Serengeti homeland: It was high safari season in Tanzania, the long rains over, the grasses yellowing and dry. Land Cruisers were speeding toward the Serengeti Plain. Billionaires were flying into private hunting […]
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