Big Ag Hurts Small Farms, but Which Grows More Food?

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/big-ag-hurts-small-farm-which-grows-more-food-1381242642



The Land Grab

A phenomenon you may not have heard of has accelerated since 2008. A huge spike in food prices, along with high demand for bio-fuels (petroleum based fuel) made farming big business instead of a collection of long-standing traditions among cultures around the world. This caused an explosion in land-grabs in countries as diverse as Southeast Asia, India, Europe, and our own USA.

Governments supported these land grabs by giving corporations the infrastructure and legal support, including farm subsidies, they needed to buy land from small farmers.

Rich investors were able to land-grab by setting up ‘foundations’ like AGree – a think tank funded with money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and other institutions with an interest in promoting Big Ag and Big Chemical.

Ironically, the tenets which comprise this think tank’s origins are based in 'environmental concerns' though GMO have arguably trashed our soil and water supplies. “AGree is launching at a pivotal moment for food and agriculture policy. Over the next four decades there will be an additional 2.6 billion people on Earth to feed—a 38 percent population increase from today—in addition to the 925 million people who currently suffer under-nutrition or hunger. Simultaneously, the world faces a limited amount of easily accessible arable land, increasing pressures on freshwater quality and availability and accelerating environmental degradation.”

- See more at: http://www.nationofchange.org/big-ag-hurts-small-farm-which-grows-more-food-1381242642#sthash.N3AON2Io.dpuf

[tularetom]

1. The Walmartization of farming

What Wally World did to mom and pop retailers, these corporate ag outfits are doing to the family farm.

My dad saw it coming 50 years ago. He encouraged his kids to learn something else and when all three of us left home, he sold the farm and moved back east. It's been sold twice since then and it's now part of a ginormous pistachio orchard owned (I think) by a French corporation.

[xchrom]

2. +1