Millions of small-scale farmers and food producers including
indigenous communities in poor countries have limited access to land and
resources because the land is monopolised and controlled by landlords and big
corporations. It is ironic that those who suffer severe hunger are those who
directly produce food. We face today a world of increasing repression of rural
communities and worsening threats to their rights to land and resources. We
witness how landless peasants, farmers, farm workers, indigenous people, fishers,
rural women and youth, and other marginalized rural sectors greatly suffer
under authoritarian populist regimes. We see how massive infrastructure
projects and agricultural “development” programs, many funded through onerous
foreign debt and investments, displace rural peoples from their lands,
livelihoods and cultures – all in the name of capitalist domination and
plunder, local elite rule and private profits. Global powers – now counting
emergent China – and their corporations continue to intensify their endless
pursuit of and competition for control and exploitation of the world’s natural
resources, including lands and all the wealth these hold and can produce. All
this feeds the unabated concentration of land in the hands of a few at the
expense of the vast majority who actually till and enrich the lands for
generations.
Land grabbing and resource grabbing are strife. Land and
resource grabbing is inherent in capitalism. Foreign businesses are buying or
leasing agricultural land in developing countries for industrial food and
biofuel production. Local elites in business and politics play a central role
in facilitating these deals. Land and resource grabbers remain determined to
take away what rightfully belong to the people. Without land to till or
agriculture to depend on, people have no food or income for their families. Latest
available estimates show that of the 570 million farms worldwide, 475 million
are small holder farms (i.e. less than two hectares). While comprising more
than 83% of the total number of farms, these small holder farms only operate
about 12% of the world’s agricultural land. While small farms are concentrated
in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia and could produce almost
three-fourths of food commodities globally, these same regions account for 95%
of the rural poor. Overall, eight out of every 10 of the world’s poorest live
the rural areas, based on latest estimates.
FROM
https://panap.net/campaigns/no-land-no-life/
FROM
https://panap.net/campaigns/no-land-no-life/
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