Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Corporations, investors grabbing land overseas

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Corporations, investors grabbing land overseas

Click here to access article by Brian Bienkowski from Environmental Health News.

It's clear to me that this is another disastrous consequence of neoliberal policies imposed on most of the world by the Empire.

“One big driver is biofuels and new biofuel policy. It has really increased the demand for agricultural land,” D’Odorico said.

The 2007 Energy and Independence Security Act in the United States mandated a fourfold increase of the amount of biofuels by 2022. A 2009 European Union directive had a similar goal. Biofuels are fuels made from different types of plants and crops. The most popular examples from crops are turning corn or sugarcane into ethanol, or turning palm oil into biodiesel.

...also [another driver is] the industrialization of agriculture over the past few decades. This type of farming needs a lot of land, which can be found cheaply overseas.