Joan Baxter is a Canadian journalist who has lived and worked in Africa for 25 years, reporting for the BBC and other international media and doing research on sustainable natural resource management, agriculture, mining and extractive industries.
In June 2011 a series of reports she co-researched and wrote on land-grabs in Africa were published by the Oakland Institute. The Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa reports reveal that largely unregulated land purchases are resulting in virtually none of the promised benefits for native populations, but instead are forcing millions of small farmers off ancestral lands and small, local food farms in order to make room for export commodities, including biofuels and cut flowers. These reports, as well as briefs on other aspects of land grabs, are available here.

Joan Baxter's book A Serious Pair of Shoes – an African Journal (2000), won the Evelyn Richardson Award for non-fiction at the 2001 Atlantic Writing Awards.

In her first contribution to our site, The non-visionary war on hardwoods, in September 2004, Joan commented on local use of the herbicide glyphosate, a Monsanto product also known as Roundup.

See some of her most recent reporting here: