Small farmers are being squeezed out as mega-farms concentrated in the hands of wealthy elites and corporations, a study has found. These mega-farms are less productive in terms of amount of food they produce per area of land, the report argues.
The land area occupied by just four crops – soybean, oil palm, rapeseed and sugar cane – has quadrupled over the past 50 years. Over 140 million hectares of fields and forests have been taken over by these plantations since the 1960s – roughly the same area as all the farmland in the EU.
Small and medium-sized farmers are going out of business, say the authors. Belgium, Finland, France, Germany and Norway in western Europe have each lost about 70% of their farms since the 1970s while Bulgaria, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia each lost over 40% of their farms from 2003 to 2010. Poland alone lost almost one million farmers between 2005 and 2010.Within the EU as a whole, over six million farms disappeared between 2003 and 2010, bringing the total number of farms down to almost the same level as in 2000, before the inclusion of 12 new member states with their 8.7 million new farmers.
Argentina lost more than one-third of its farms in the two decades from 1988 to 2008. Between 1997 and 2007, Chile lost 15% of its farms with the biggest farms doubling their average size, from 7,000ha to 14,000ha per farm. The United States has lost 30% of its farms in the last 50 years. In India, the average farm size roughly halved from 1971 to 2006. In China, the average area of land cultivated per household fell by 25% between 1985 and 2000. In Africa, average farm size is also falling.
“Control over land is being usurped from small producers and their families, with elites and corporate powers pushing people onto smaller and smaller land holdings, or off the land entirely into camps or cities,” Henk Hobbelink of Grain.
Although big farms generally consume more resources, control the best lands, receive most of the irrigation water and infrastructure, they have lower technical efficiency and therefore lower overall productivity. Much of this has to do with low levels of employment used on big farms in order to maximise return on investment. Beyond strict productivity measurements, small farms also are much better at producing and utilising biodiversity, maintaining landscapes, contributing to local economies, providing work opportunities and promoting social cohesion, not to mention their real and potential contribution to reversing the climate crisis.
The land area occupied by just four crops – soybean, oil palm, rapeseed and sugar cane – has quadrupled over the past 50 years. Over 140 million hectares of fields and forests have been taken over by these plantations since the 1960s – roughly the same area as all the farmland in the EU.
Small and medium-sized farmers are going out of business, say the authors. Belgium, Finland, France, Germany and Norway in western Europe have each lost about 70% of their farms since the 1970s while Bulgaria, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia each lost over 40% of their farms from 2003 to 2010. Poland alone lost almost one million farmers between 2005 and 2010.Within the EU as a whole, over six million farms disappeared between 2003 and 2010, bringing the total number of farms down to almost the same level as in 2000, before the inclusion of 12 new member states with their 8.7 million new farmers.
Argentina lost more than one-third of its farms in the two decades from 1988 to 2008. Between 1997 and 2007, Chile lost 15% of its farms with the biggest farms doubling their average size, from 7,000ha to 14,000ha per farm. The United States has lost 30% of its farms in the last 50 years. In India, the average farm size roughly halved from 1971 to 2006. In China, the average area of land cultivated per household fell by 25% between 1985 and 2000. In Africa, average farm size is also falling.
“Control over land is being usurped from small producers and their families, with elites and corporate powers pushing people onto smaller and smaller land holdings, or off the land entirely into camps or cities,” Henk Hobbelink of Grain.
Although big farms generally consume more resources, control the best lands, receive most of the irrigation water and infrastructure, they have lower technical efficiency and therefore lower overall productivity. Much of this has to do with low levels of employment used on big farms in order to maximise return on investment. Beyond strict productivity measurements, small farms also are much better at producing and utilising biodiversity, maintaining landscapes, contributing to local economies, providing work opportunities and promoting social cohesion, not to mention their real and potential contribution to reversing the climate crisis.
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