Canadian journalist, award-winning author, development consultant, and anthropologist, Joan Baxter has lived and worked in Africa for over 30 years. She has reported for the BBC and other international media and researched and written on sustainable natural resource management, agriculture, mining and extractive industries, with an eye to the geo-political and economic drivers that shape our world.

Visit her website: www.joanbaxter.ca/

and learn about (and order!) her latest book (summer 2017):

BBC Focus on Africa interviews Joan Baxter, a former correspondent for the program, about her new book, “Seven Grains of Paradise: A Culinary Journey in Africa”, which celebrates Africa’s food, farms, crops and cuisines.

Listen to the interview here: August 17, 2017 BBC Focus on Africa interviews Joan Baxter

The book is available as an e-publication online from Amazon.com and Rakuten Kobo, and in Canada from Amazon.ca. It is available in print from many independent bookstores across Canada.

Find her excellent radio reports from West Africa: www.joanbaxter.ca/audio/

In June 2011 a series of reports she co-researched and wrote on land-grabs in Africa was published by the Oakland Institute. Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa: Sierra Leone  reveals that largely unregulated land purchases are resulting in virtually none of the promised benefits for native populations, but instead force millions of small farmers off ancestral lands and small, local food farms to make room for export commodities, including biofuels and cut flowers.

Read about her books here and 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: