In countries throughout Africa, farmers are being displaced at an
increasing pace as their land is being bought by or leased to
multinational corporations at nominal prices. The United Nations and
World Bank support the large-scale land acquisitions , arguing that, if
done “equitably,” the practice could help boost worldwide food security
by increasing productivity.
According to a Sept. 7 World Bank
report, during the first 11 months of 2009 over 110 million acres of
land were expropriated by corporations, compared with 10 million acres
in years prior. This November, South Korea and Madagascar were
negotiating a deal that would have given the Daewoo Group over half of
the island’s arable land.
Hunger is not caused by a lack of
production but by the unequal distribution of food and the private
ownership of resources. Further concentrating the world’s land in the
hands of corporations will only aggravate global hunger and
malnutrition.
