The rich will always eat.

Even in the worst of times, the rich have rarely felt the pinch of hunger in their bellies. Whether in the U.S., Asia, or Africa, they have the money to buy as much food as they want, in good times and in bad. They are not ever �food-insecure,� a modern term for those who are hungry, but not starving. The poor might miss a meal a day, or more. That�s hunger.

In the worst cases, the poor might eat a minimum of food, perhaps once a day. The rich in any country, because of their individual wealth or their class position in society, will not miss any meals. This is true of groups of people within a nation and it�s true of nations. Increases in populations and the disparity in wealth in many countries are causing countries to worry about their ability to feed their people.

A few names that come to mind are China, India, Latin America, nations in the Middle East, and other Asian countries, such as South Korea. Some of these countries are stalking the earth, looking for land on which they can grow food for their growing populations. Usually, it�s under the guise of the principles of global free trade, but it�s easy for those governments to funnel money through some of their biggest corporations to achieve their goals.

In Ethiopia, the project that is bringing continent-wide attention is a greenhouse in Awassa that covers about 50 acres, or about the size of 20 football fields, where land and water will be used to produce food to be shipped to places in the Middle East like Dubai and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The produce will be packed and shipped to Addis Ababa for flights to Jeddah, about 150 miles to the north, and to other destinations in the Middle East. According to the Mail and Guardian, a newspaper in Johannesburg, South Africa, about 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tons of food a day from the millions of peppers, tomatoes, and other vegetables grown for other peoples.

Ethiopia itself is a nation in food need and opponents of the purchase or long-term lease of farmland call it a land grab. The paper reported that Ethiopia has more than 13 million who are in food need, yet the government has offered 7.5 million acres to rich countries and individuals.

For example, the land on which the giant greenhouse - with its controlled environment and water - sits on 2,500 acres leased for 99 years by Ethiopian-born billionaire, Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, said to be among the richest 100 persons in the world. He lives in Saudi Arabia.

His company, Saudi Star, plans to invest another $2 billion in the fertile lands of Ethiopia over the next few years on some 1,250,000 acres, which enterprises will employ about 10,000 workers. If working conditions in that African country are anything like the conditions of farm workers in other parts of the world, including the U.S., they will be hungry workers, doing stoop labor to feed affluent people in far off countries.

Some are calling it a land grab, some call it a land rush, others refer to it as a kind of new colonialism. But the fact remains that small farmers will be driven off their lands to be replaced with a kind of cash crop that will benefit a few corporations or individuals.

In the old colonialism, rulers sent in their governors and managers and consolidated land for the production of tobacco, cotton, and other crops that would bring profits in the world market. The people did the work, but they did not benefit and they no longer had their own small holdings to grow their own food. Or the land they held in common that fed their herds or flocks was taken for growing the world cash crop.

In this latest manifestation, based on the so-called global free market philosophy, entrepreneurs convince governments of small nations that the leasing or sale of large tracts of land to foreign business enterprises will be a benefit to the people.

In Ethiopia, the former farmers in Awassa will likely be in the ranks of the farm workers who will be producing food in the booming export business. Little of that food will remain to feed Ethiopians. And, according to the Mail and Guardian, Ethiopia is just one of the approximately 20 countries in Africa that are being eyed for similar take-overs.

They don�t talk in terms of a few thousand acres, either. They are leasing or buying tens of thousands of acres or millions of acres. The Saudi sheikh�s company is just one of hundreds looking in Ethiopia alone. There are equal numbers in the other 19 African countries.

GRAIN, a small international non-profit group that supports small farm agriculture and community-based social movements for control of their own lives, has been following the new developments in land-grabbing and it was their research and that of other groups into land use in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that was used in the Mail and Guardian�s report.

And it�s not as if big money is being put into the coffers of the Ethiopian or other governments. Some land deals are going for as little as $1 per acre for 99 years. By any standard, that�s cheap land and you can be sure that the labor is just as cheap, therefore exploited labor.

Why are governments and in many cases, investment bankers or hedge fund managers, going from country to country to find land to buy or lease? Simply because they can�t feed their own people or they will be in that position shortly. They don�t want repeats of food riots that have occurred by the hundreds around the world just in the past three years.

Although there are problems and expenses of transportation, packing, and distribution once they get to the target country, those seem to be lesser problems now, compared with the unrest that is possible if people don�t have something to eat every day. As the food shortages increase, the �food insecurity� will move on up the class ladder, and governments don�t want middle classes or educated working classes going hungry for too long in the course of a week.

The search for land is an age-old one and has caused many conflicts and wars in history. It�s as basic as feeling hungry at the end of a long work day. Civilization was supposed to minimize the impulse of people to take from neighbors what was not theirs.

Commerce in the modern era is seen to be different, especially when we have been pounded by the propaganda that the �free market� will save us, that �global free trade� will help everyone.

It�s clear in the case of the taking of land that doesn�t belong to the buyers or renters that they are overriding local custom and tradition and bringing the weight of heavy capital down on the necks of local peoples.

As one ex-patriot Ethiopian who now lives in England was quoted: The land in question in one section of his native country was in complete use. Farmers used all of it. Because it was not planted with a crop did not mean that it was not in use. It might have been left fallow to renew itself or it may have been left to grow for grazing animals. It was all in use.

This is happening on at least two continents, in Africa and in Latin America. However, a careful look at the U.S. will show that a similar shuffle has taken place (and is still taking place) in our own country. Small farmers were moved off the land in large numbers (think black farmers across the South) through much of the 20th Century, sometimes in massive numbers, in favor of huge industrial operations to produce food materials, which are now being sold in supermarkets as food.

As long as there is food in those supermarkets, indeed, the rich will eat. In places where people are desperate for sustenance, they would be wise to eat that food out of sight of the people who are doing without.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former union organizer. His union work started when he became a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early 1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.