Called land grabbing, the steady concentration of land and
its profits into the hands of an ever decreasing number of land owners is a
growing problem in the European Union (EU). In 2010, the top 3% of farms
controlled a half of the EU's Usable Agricultural Area (UAA), while 80% of
farms, all with fewer than 10 hectares of land, were in control of only 12% in
2012.
A recent report from the Transnational Institute: 'Extent of Farmland Grabbing in the EU' is a sharp critique of unregulated capitalism and
the growing monopolisation of arable land by large, corporate agricultural
enterprises. The report suggest that this process reflects a more general shift
towards an agricultural sector that is increasingly driven by markets and
capital: little wonder then that inequality rears its uglyhead.
Europe is still a continent whose model of farming is based
on small, family enterprises: 84% of farms rely on the use of family labour,
and farms of fewer than 2 hectares of land comprised nearly half (49%) of
agricultural holdings in 2012. However in a 30 year period more than half the
farming population of the original six countries of the European Economic Community
have disappeared, from 10.4 million in 1960 to 4.8 million in 1990. This trend
has continued and in the past eight years alone, around three million farms
(20% of the total) have been lost in the EU. Small and family-run businesses,
often one and the same, are being squeezed out of the market at an alarming
rate, along with young and aspiring farmers - and the process is more often
than not reversible. In their place, farms of a size never before seen and
employing comparatively fewer workers are cropping up across Europe, with the
greatest concentration in Eastern European countries. The biggest farm to be
found in Romania, run by the Lebanese-owned Maria Group, stretches across
65,000 hectares.
The effect of the entry into the market of these large agri-business
corporations is to drive down farmgate prices. For many small farmers the
reality of ever-decreasing returns renders their business model untenable,
forcing them to close down production and sell up. It is fundamentally altering
how land is used and for what purposes. Larger, corporate agricultural
enterprises tend to favour a more industrial way of farming - one based on
monocultures, the intensive use of agro-chemicals and a greater reliance on
preventive medicines. Not only do such practices have worrying implications for
biodiversity, ecosystems and animal welfare, they also compromise the richness
and variety that has until now characterised European food cultures.
The cultivation of produce that can be used for multiple
purposes including food, feed and fuel is also a deep concern for food
production in the EU. The end use of these "flex crops" is ultimately
determined by their stock market value and the profits that they generate and
their mass production is edging smaller and organic farmers out of the
landscape. The reasons behind this drastic restructuring of European farming
are complex and numerous, however it is possible to point to several major push
factors. First, a new generation of investors not traditionally involved in the
agricultural sector - including individual traders, investment funds and
private equity companies - are finding that the relatively cheap land in
Eastern European countries is an increasingly attractive and lucrative
prospect. Lucrative because speculators are no longer bound by rules dictating
what land can and cannot be used for. In a process known as
'artificialisation', prime agricultural land can be bought and converted
quickly to urban sprawl, real estate, tourist sites and other commercial
projects, where there is big money to be made. Traders can typically multiply
their returns by one hundred when re-selling land converted in this way, a
process that is causing France to haemorrhage more than 60,000 hectares of
mostly fertile farmland per year.
The Common Agricultural Policy, or CAP, was established in
the early 1950s and 1960s as Europe emerged from a prolonged period of food
shortages. The CAP's intended purpose in its current incarnation is to
guarantee viable food production, to encourage the sustainable management of
natural resources and stimulate climate action and to develop the balanced
development of land. However throughout its history the CAP has been marred by
conflicts of interest and controversy: its most recent version (2014-20) is no
different. A main pillar of the CAP aims to boost the viability, productivity,
competitiveness and sustainability of EU agriculture by providing subsidies, or
Direct Payments, to EU farmers. Decoupling of production from payments, which
are now linked to the amount of land possessed, was a necessary and welcome
step as it discouraged farmers from producing ever more food for almost
unlimited subsidies - a provision that historically led to infamous mountains
of butter or lakes of milk. It has, however, distorted the distribution of
direct payments - allowing the top 1% of agricultural businesses to benefit
disproportionately from the CAP. In Italy, 0.8% of beneficiaries took home a
huge 26.3% of the country's Direct Payments.
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