Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

A Global Hunt For Water For Agriculture Risks Draining Cities Dry

Courtesy of Bloomberg, a report that – while taps in coastal Dakar barely trickle – an investment company uses Senegal’s only lake to irrigate crops it plans to send to Saudi Arabia: The Senegal River in West Africa musters its force from 200 centimeters (80 inches) of rain a year in the highlands of central […]

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China’s Farmland Grab

Via National Review, a short commentary on China’s efforts to dominate the world’s food supply: China’s decade-long effort to dominate the world’s food supply has expanded beyond controlling agricultural resources in South America and Africa. Chinese purchases of American agricultural land increased 5,300 percent between 2010 and 2020, and its rate of expansion is accelerating. China […]

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Europe: Wargaming a Food Crisis

Via Bloomberg, a report on a group of people who came together last month to tackle the worst-case scenario for one of the best-fed regions in the world: The combined forces of El Niño and La Niña have crippled Latin American soy output. Ukrainian and Russian grain farmers have gone to war. Indonesia has banned […]

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Del Monte: Turning Kenya Into A Pineapple Republic?

Via Jacobin, commentary on Del Monte’s activities in Kenya: In Kenya’s lush Thika region, just north of Nairobi, stealing pineapples is a de facto capital crime. At least nine men have allegedly been killed by security guards employed by Del Monte, the world’s largest producer of pineapples. This series of killings first broke international news in […]

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Food A Weapon In New Age of Starvation

Via Devex, a look at how the wars in Gaza and Ukraine are normalizing the weaponization of food: For several months, the Biden Administration has stored some 60,000 metric tons of wheat in holding warehouses in the Fujairah port in the United Arab Emirates. The food — originally destined for millions of hungry Yemeni civilians in […]

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Who’s Behind the Destruction of Brazil’s Cerrado?

Via Grist, a look at how some of the world’s largest pension funds bet big on Brazilian farmland. Communities, and the climate, are paying the price. In August 2020, Maria do Espirito Santo was returning from her family’s field in the savanna of northeast Brazil when she saw smoke billowing from her thatched hut. Do […]

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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.