The world’s food supplies are at risk because farmland is becoming rapidly concentrated in the hands of wealthy elites and corporations, a study has found.
Small farmers, the UN says, grow 70% of the world’s food but a new analysis of government data suggests the land which they control is shrinking every year as mega-farms and plantations squeeze them onto less than 25% of the world’s available farmland, says international land-use group Grain. These mega-farms are less productive in terms of amount of food they produce per area of land, the report argues.The Raw Story
“Small farms have less than a quarter of the world’s agricultural land – or less than 20% excluding China and India. Such farms are getting smaller all the time, and if this trend persists they might not be able to continue to feed the world,” says the report which draws on government statistics and calls for a stop on land grabbing by corporations.
Corporations and wealthy elites now control more than 75 percent of the world’s farmland
John Vidal, The Guardian
Capitalism leads to consolidation, and consolidation to monopoly capital.
