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Corporate Land Grabs Threaten Food Security

From Yahoo Opinion.

"Imagine if instead of stores buying fruit from the South Pacific, the government was buying land in South America to produce "our own" food.

Yet that is what's happening all over the world, as wealthy countries buy or lease large tracts of land in poorer countries for agricultural production and export. At the same time, financial institutions and agribusiness are chasing land as an investment in the expanding biofuels market. Poor governments are often too eager to comply, offering up what they deem "idle" or "unused" land, but which is frequently inhabited and farmed by indigenous populations."

What--our own land isn't good enough? Must be the regulations, or maybe the subsidy program is being penalized.

"Land rights advocates, farmers' and peasants' groups, and a slew of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have held firmly against this trend. They argue that these land deals spur an assortment of negative consequences, including ecosystem destruction, worker exploitation, loss of livelihoods, food insecurity, and market distortion toward agribusiness and global trade.

A recently leaked World Bank report cited in the Financial Times suggests they may be right: "Investors in farmland are targeting countries with weak laws, buying arable land on the cheap and failing to deliver on promises of jobs and investments," the Times summarized."

Posted by Cute at 6:15 PM

Labels: financial (non-tax), food purchases, health, social issues