Its been a while since I've commented on worldwide events, ones that we are mostly oblivious to. One of the reasons I stopped commenting regularly on them is that for the most part, they can be summed up in a few sentences. There is rampant corruption world wide. There are still dictators who like to rule with an iron fist. There are still wars being waged over the most idiotic of reasons. There, I think that does it. Oh, before I forget, there are still millions of people being oppressed by both foreign and national powers. It is this last point that I will speak to today as I read an interesting op-ed piece in the NY Times this morning. If you haven't heard of this yet, there are countries buying up enormous tracts of farmland in foreign countries, countries that are often corrupt, looking for extra money, and could care less about their own citizens. A good portion of this farmland being sold is in Africa, with other areas selling farmland on a lesser scale. All told, last year saw land equal to eight times the size of Great Britain sold for agriculture with billions of dollars being invested in it. These tracts of land, some equal to the size of Pennsylvania and New Jersey combined, are often times sold with the inhabitants being made aware, or if they are, there is no concern shown for their needs. In essence, land is being stolen from native inhabitants and sold to foreign investors who often times export everything that is grown there. This is becoming a major problem as the areas where the land is being sold have populations that are struggling to get by as it is. Yet this is of no concern to the foreign investors and it seems of even less concern to the countries who are selling the land from right under the rightful owners and inhabitants. Sometimes, the land is not even being used to grow food meant for human consumption, rather, it is used to grow food meant to feed animals. While I understand why countries are doing this, I surely don't agree with it and think that in the long run it will lead to more conflicts and international struggles.
With the world population growing at what seems to be an exponential rate, we are running into the issue of having less and less arable land on which to grow food to sustain the population. As it is, there are a plethora of people who go hungry every day and are living on the verge of starvation. Yet, if you live in a third world country and your land is being stripped away from you by foreign investors and your own government, what can you do besides fight to get it back? There seems to be very little concern both amongst foreign investors and the governments selling the land as to how it is affecting the native populations. This land, which for some has been used for hundreds of years by native populations to eek out a living, barely sustaining their own families, is now being taken away to provide food for people who probably already have enough. In some cases, the land that is being bought is just being sat on till a time when it is absolutely necessary to use it. To me its a slap in the face to the inhabitants who now have to see this land, sometimes go unused, and provide nothing for them. While I understand the need for countries to consider the welfare of their own inhabitants, it does not mean that they can forgo the welfare of others. With all our technological advancements over the past century, you would think that we would have figured out by now how to use land to its maximum, using new hardier crops, allowing for enough food to be grown to sustain a given population. Yet we in developed countries have taken to eating more than we need to, throwing out more than we should, and all in all being wasteful of what we have. As a result we (not necessarily the U.S.), have turned to third world countries to provide the extra food we need. Its an abomination in my mind, but yet, what am I to do about it besides voice my opinion and hope it does something.
The problem is, as with most larger issues, is that the politics of it are governed by money. The person with the most money to invest can essentially do what they want. If an investor offers a few million dollars to buy or lease land in a country that is hard pressed for money, I guarantee that the country will very willingly sell their land. No matter how much we speak out sometimes, money trumps logic, due diligence, fairness, etc. Just look at our country and the power of lobbyists to push agendas through our own government, regardless of the impacts it may have on the larger population. It is absurd that people with large amounts of money can do what they want, yet that is the system we have created and to take it down would be tantamount to reducing Mount Everest to gravel with a little rock hammer. Its just not going to happen and if it does, it will take the concerted effort of hundreds of thousands of people to do so. What we should be doing is looking at our current use of land and look for ways to improve it. Unless we start making a conscious effort to do this, we will very soon run into bigger issues over land, wars being waged, people being displaced, and more and more people going hungry. Its a volatile world we live in these days and unless we start acting responsibly, we are going to do nothing but increase the volatility and create a world in which you are either poor or wealthy, there will be nothing in between. So, on this depressing note, I think it is time for me to end my blog today. There is a reason that I don't comment to often on current events any more that are happening world wide; they are to depressing to write about and no matter what I say or do, things will keep on going. What I can do is improve my own life, be cautious about my own use of food and wasting as little as possible, and do everything in my power to by food grown within our own country. If we stop buying foreign grown food, at least we can make a dent in this issue, perhaps not a big one, but at least a dent. How else can we change the system when the system is designed to run without changing?
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