Methods for short-term control of Imperata grass in Peruvian Amazon

The traditional control of Imperata brasiliensis grasslands used by farmers in the Peruvian Amazon is to burn the grass. The objective of this study was to compare different methods of short-term control. Biological, mechanical, chemical and traditional methods of control were compared. Herbicide spraying and manual weeding have shown to be very effective in reducing above- and below-ground biomass growth in the first 45 days after slashing the grass, with effects persisting in the longer term, but both are expensive methods. Shading seems to be less effective in the short-term, whereas it influences the Imperata growth in the longer term. After one year shading, glyphosate application and weeding significantly reduced aboveground biomass by 94, 67 and 53%; and belowground biomass by 76, 65 and 58%, respectively, compared to control. We also found a significant decrease of Imperata rhizomes in soil during time under shading. Burning has proved to have no significant effect on Imperata growth. The use of shade trees in a kind of agroforestry system could be a suitable method for small farmers to control Imperata grasslands.

Political Economy of Global Rush for Agricultural Land: a Tract on India’s Overseas Acquisitions

This paper is an attempt to map the global land acquisitions with a focus on Indian MNCs in acquiring overseas land for agricultural purposes. It tries to outline the contemporary political economy of capital accumulation at the global level, especially, in the emerging developing economies like India and China, where the emergence of a new capitalist class has engaged itself into acquisition of land and control of other natural resources in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and South East Asia, for example, water and other minerals to secure itself from the eventual losses of ongoing economic crisis and to earn profit from the volatile agricultural commodity markets. This sway of control of resources by the MNCs has got paramount State support under the helm of neoliberal policies. The paper provides scale of overseas land acquisitions at the current juncture and tries to highlight its causes and the major implications associated with it.