Word: lands
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...conclusively dispelling the strangely persistent myth of farming as some sort of pastoral pleasure. He then argues that the past century's lowering of trade barriers and opening of agricultural markets, with the help of bodies like the WTO and the World Bank, have wrested control of the land and what grows on it from the hands of farmers and have given it to corporations and bureaucrats. Supermarket procurement desks, he writes, "can fire the poorest farm workers in South Africa, flip the fates of coffee growers in Guatemala or tweak the output of paddy terraces in Thailand...
Kevin Timberlake digs the toe of his cowboy boot into the caked earth and gives the coffee-colored dirt a scuff. Some 70 acres of scrubby land spread out in front of him under the washed-out blue sky. "See the soil. This is junk," Timberlake says. Under his breath, he counts a thin herd of cattle hanging their heads over the weeds. Once a horse trainer and breeder in Missouri, Timberlake now spends his days thinking about cows, and this time next year, he and his employer, Western Cattle Company, would like to see about 10,000 more living...
...Mueller and his partners chose to set up their first feedlot outside Hohhot, Inner Mongolia's capital, partly because of the local government's aggressive pro-investment policies. Among other things, officials helped the company find land and provided introductions to potential business partners. Ultimately, though, it came down to the fact that Hohhot is a cow town. Two of China's biggest dairies, Mengniu and Yili, have headquarters in the area, and buy milk from thousands of farmers who raise dairy cows in their front yards. There are more than a million cows around Hohhot; the bustling city...
...that way. In the past seven years, the city has almost doubled in both population and physical size, a trend that's in keeping with Inner Mongolia's recent double-digit growth rates. Officials welcome Western Cattle's feedlots as a way to use marginal land, create jobs and produce more food. "If we have a very good feedlot here, it will help people become wealthy," says Teng Guiyuan of Hohhot's Bureau of Investment Attraction. "Small farmers want to make money, but they aren't powerful enough. They need a big company to lead...
...nothing is easy in a country with such a complicated past. Developers have struggled to obtain contiguous plots of land, and regional officials have been slow to grant building permits because of concerns over unscrupulous practices and environmental impact. The only course in Istria is the oldest in the Balkans. The 18-holer on the Brijuni Islands is located on Marshal Tito's former private playground, where the Yugoslav dictator once hosted dignitaries and Hollywood stars. As if evoking Tito's fleeting and superficial glory, the course is left untended, and the greens are manicured by grazing deer...