The
global economy is hard at work ensuring that the rich
countries will have enough food to feed their affluent
citizens, and now they are even ensuring that a large
percentage of those crops will be raised for fuel, for
the same people.
We
know that international investors are busily traveling
around the world, either buying up land outright, or leasing
land for a long term (as long as 99 years) in some of
the nations where the people are in great need of food
and development. For such investors, anything that will
bring in the profits is an object of their interest.
Everybody
eats, so food is naturally something that will not lose
its value, so investors are plunging headlong into farmland
and food processing operations. Years ago, some of the
most powerful corporations in the U.S. realized that food was a good bet for making
money over the long haul. Otherwise, why would Philip
Morris, a tobacco company, have made huge investments
in food and food companies, such as Kraft? The apparent
rationale was that, even if people stopped smoking, they
weren�t going to stop eating, and they were right. The
company even changed its name in 2007, to Altria.
The
hunt is on by investors for farmland to buy, both in the
U.S.
and in other countries, particularly in Africa, South
America, India,
and some other parts of Asia. In
early March, La Via Campesina, a worldwide advocacy organization
of peasant farmers, indigenous farmers, landless peoples,
and others who are on the fringes of society in their
countries, reported that Saudi Arabia now owns l.6 million
hectares of land in Indonesia and Sudan. The group also
reported that about 1.3 million hectares of land in Madagascar were leased, bought,
or transferred to South Korean private corporations.
All
of this follows hard on the heels of similar purchases
in Somalia and other places in the Horn of Africa,
where the people live in extreme poverty and development
is particularly slow. We�re not talking about bullet trains
and malls here, but by �development� is meant constructing
systems for potable water, roads that can take goods to
market in most weather, and rudimentary train or bus systems
that will provide low-cost and efficient transportation
for the people.
The
point is that land grabbing is not a new phenomenon. It
has been around in its current form for at least a decade
and is just now getting the attention of supporters of
egalitarian development around the world. A major concern
is that the crops that will be grown by foreign owners
will not even be for food, but for biofuels. Development
of such fuels will make certain that no one will benefit
nutritionally from the crops grown.
�Selling
of land to foreign investors and the de-nationalization
of land degrades natural ecosystems by monoculture farming
practices,� according to Sister Ana Maria Siufi, of Argentina
and the Sisters of Mercy, whose work with people at the
village and neighborhood level takes them around the globe.
�Genetically modified crops and crops for biofuels replace
a variety of food crops. Small and medium producers are
rendered bankrupt and dispossessed when they cannot compete
with large multinationals and are forced to sell their
land.�
A
direct result of land grabs in the developing world is
hunger among those who already are hungry, especially
when there is no rain, or there are typhoons and floods,
or crops fail for some other reason. La via Campesina
recently quoted Jean
Ziegler, former UN special rapporteur, on the right to
food, who said: �Land grabbing is clearly a gross violation
of the rights of peasants. Most of these land grabs are
not even for food production but for agrofuels, which
are destroying our land, society, environment and our
food sovereignty...We have to forbid land grabbing, if
we want to protect our food system.�
Land
grabs in the developing world will eventually affect the
nations of the North, where most countries are already
�developed,� because cheap food exported from the South
to the North will make it very difficult for farmers and
operators of industrial farming models to make a living.
That economic condition is just taking shape, so it isn�t
easy to make hard and fast predictions about who will
be hurt most.
What
is clear, however, is that women and their right to own
or lease land on their own, and their right to own various
kinds of property (such as seeds, tools, and other materials)
in the developing countries will be harmed. This is happening
and will continue to happen at an increasing rate, even
though women raise the bulk of the food crops in most
of the poorer countries. As the amount of land that is
grabbed by nations and transnational corporations increases,
the problem of hunger and stunted growth will continue
to be a problem of monstrous proportions.
Madagascar is a prime example of the problems of development
and exploitation of natural resources and the people.
Human settlements on the island of Madagascar go back some 2,500 years,
when Austronesian travelers arrived from Borneo
in their dugout canoes. Since that time, many different
groups settled there, off the east coast of Southern Africa,
including the Bantu, who crossed the Mozambique
Channel about 1,000 years ago. Ruled as a kingdom for
most of its human history, it became part of the French
colonial empire in 1896. Madagascar gained
its independence in 1960, during the wave of fights for
freedom from the various European empires. The last elected
leader was routed by a coup d��tat in 2009.
Ninety
percent of the approximately 21.9 million people live
on $2-$3 a day. There is the classic problem of how to
feed, house, educate, and provide health care for so many
impoverished people. During the French colonial era, there
were cash crops for export and some other enterprises
that brought in some income to the economy, but the majority
of the people kept their old ways involving small scale
farming or fishing, since most of the benefits of empire
in the 19th and 20th Centuries went to the foreign investors.
That
is an old story and what it happening now to countries
like Madagascar is causing alarm among the people whose
subsistence living is even being threatened. These
are people who have seen the �investments� in land ownership
or long-term leases and what they ultimately mean for
the country and its people.
This
is happening in country after country and, as in Madagascar, the people do not have much political
power, any more than they have economic power. The official
aid organizations and agencies of the developed countries
are working hand in hand with the corporations and international
investment firms, to convince politicians and the people
that it is the wise thing to do, to give over land to
foreign entities as a way to improve local economies.
With 1.3 million hectares (about 3,211,000 acres) of Madagascar
controlled by South Korea,
it is not likely that the people of Madagascar will benefit greatly.
Through
some three centuries before World War II, there were imperial
powers that exercised dominance and control over vast
areas of the world, especially in places where the natural
resources were needed by the conquering nation. Colonialism
was a fact of life for such large parts of the world�and
the people of those nations rarely saw any �benefits�
(including such things as the imparting of the idea of
civil service by England
in India).
As far as self-determination, equality, and self-rule,
the people of the subject nations were out of luck.
After
World War II, peoples everywhere began to stir and to
demand control over their own nations and, by 1960, most
of the former colonies had gained their independence and
embarked on the very difficult works involving self-rule.
Most are still working at it, but the scars of imperialism
remained and wounds of colonialism are still open.
What
the world is seeing now is a new kind of empire�the empire
of money, economics, and �free� trade. As always, everything
is free, except the people. The new colonialism will result
in the same exploitation and suffering as the old, but
we should hope that it will not take hundreds of years
to eliminate it. The solution will only come from the
demands of the people of the rich nations. Their politicians
and the corporations which they allow to function in the
world must be held accountable and must be required to
change their ways. The disparity in wealth in the U.S. is tearing the
country apart. How much worse is the disparity among nations?
Such disparity will tear the world apart. The time to
act is now.
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.
