Landgrabbing 101
December 4th, 2009 by SocProf and tagged Biodiversity, Environment, Globalization, Neocolonialism, Sustainability
Over at Farmland Grab (a must-read resource for everything related to the oh-so neocolonial practice of using peripheral farm land for our own purposes), there is very good and succinct presentation on the basics of land grab (in French).
Below are the most interesting slides.
This world map that summarizes the situation. Look at Sub-Saharan Africa where land lease is combined with severe hunger whereas the major buyers are the Gulf states and parts of North Africa (where desertification is a problem).
Here is a list (in French) of the major land sellers or leasers:
And the major land buyers:
See the difference? The majority of the buyers are not countries but private companies even though states play a major role in facilitating the transfer of land in exchange for money in cash-deprived countries. These private companies are either agribusiness firms (gotta produce all this ethanol and soy and corn) or pension funds and other financial investors.
The consequences of landgrab are already well-known: monocultures for export, which means loss of biodiversity and destruction of local subsistence agriculture and land ownership for the local population.
Posted in Biodiversity, Environment, Neo-Colonialism, Sociology, Sustainability | No Comments »
