{"id":15881,"date":"2013-09-18T14:36:11","date_gmt":"2013-09-18T20:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=15881"},"modified":"2013-09-18T14:36:11","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T20:36:11","slug":"full-planet-empty-plates-chapter-10-the-global-land-rush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/full-planet-empty-plates-chapter-10-the-global-land-rush\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Planet, Empty Plates, Chapter 10. The Global Land Rush"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"subsistence<\/a>Editor\u2019s note:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re proud to support the Earth Policy Institute\u2019s online publication of Lester Brown\u2019s most recent book\u00a0Full Planet, Empty Plates\u00a0by publishing selections from the book. If you missed other installments, you can find them\u00a0here<\/a>; we\u2019ll add new ones every couple of weeks.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Lester R. Brown<\/strong><\/p>\n

Between 2007 and mid-2008, world grain and soybean prices more than doubled. As food prices climbed<\/a> everywhere, some exporting countries began to restrict grain shipments in an effort to limit food price inflation at home.Importing countries panicked. Some tried to negotiate long-term grain supply agreements with exporting countries, but in a seller\u2019s market, few were successful. Seemingly overnight, importing countries realized that one of their few options was to find land in other countries on which to produce food for themselves.<\/p>\n

Looking for land abroad is not entirely new. Empires expanded through territorial acquisitions, colonial powers set up plantations, and agribusiness firms try to expand their reach. Agricultural analyst Derek Byerlee tracks market-driven investments in foreign land back to the mid-nineteenth century. During the last 150 years, large-scale agricultural investments from industrial countries concentrated primarily on tropical products such as sugarcane, tea, rubber, and bananas.<\/p>\n

What is new now is the scramble to secure land abroad for more basic food and feed crops\u2014including wheat, rice, corn, and soybeans\u2014and for biofuels<\/a>. These land acquisitions of the last several years, or \u201cland grabs\u201d as they are sometimes called, represent a new stage in the emerging geopolitics of food scarcity. They are occurring on a scale and at a pace not seen before.<\/p>\n

Among the countries that are leading the charge to buy or lease land abroad, either directly through government entities or through domestically based agribusiness firms, are Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China, and India. Saudi Arabia\u2019s population has simply outrun its land and water resources. The country is fast losing its irrigation water and will soon be totally dependent on imports from the world market or overseas farming projects for its grain.<\/p>\n

Land acquisitions, whether to produce food, biofuels, or other crops, raise questions about who will benefit. Even if some of these projects can dramatically boost land productivity, will local people gain from this? When virtually all the inputs\u2014the farm equipment, the fertilizer, the pesticides, the seeds\u2014are brought in from abroad and all the output is shipped out of the country, this contributes little to the local economy and nothing to the local food supply. These land grabs are not only benefiting the rich, they are doing so at the expense of the poor.<\/p>\n

As land and water become scarce, as the earth\u2019s temperature rises, and as world food security deteriorates, a dangerous geopolitics of food scarcity is emerging. The conditions giving rise to this have been in the making for several decades, but the situation has come into sharp focus only in the last few years. The land acquisitions discussed here are an integral part of a global power struggle for control of the earth\u2019s land and water resources.<\/p>\n

From Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity <\/em>by Lester R. Brown. Read the full report here<\/a>. Supporting data, video, and slideshows are available for free download at www.earth-policy.org\/books\/fpep.<\/a><\/p>\n

Image credit:<\/strong> zubaa<\/a> via photopin<\/a> cc<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between 2007 and mid-2008, world grain and soybean prices more than doubled. As food prices climbed everywhere, some exporting countries began to restrict grain shipments in an effort to limit food price inflation at home.Importing countries panicked. Some tried to negotiate long-term grain supply agreements with exporting countries, but in a seller\u2019s market, few were successful. Seemingly overnight, importing countries realized that one of their few options was to find land in other countries on which to produce food for themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":15888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[6317,6381,3567,5009,3843],"yoast_head":"\nChapter 10, Lester Brown's Full Planet, Empty Plates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Countries that import much of their food have started to buy or lease land in other, poorer countries for food production, often at the expense of local people\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/full-planet-empty-plates-chapter-10-the-global-land-rush\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chapter 10, Lester Brown's Full Planet, Empty Plates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Countries that import much of their food have started to buy or lease land in other, poorer countries for food production, often at the expense of local people\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/full-planet-empty-plates-chapter-10-the-global-land-rush\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-18T20:36:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/subsistence-farmer-kenya.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"334\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Earth Policy Institute\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Earth Policy Institute\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/full-planet-empty-plates-chapter-10-the-global-land-rush\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/full-planet-empty-plates-chapter-10-the-global-land-rush\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Earth Policy Institute\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/#\/schema\/person\/303f42e2aea53dbc843da320af337631\"},\"headline\":\"Full Planet, Empty Plates, Chapter 10. 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