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’état 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.
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