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Land ‘grabs’ expand to Europe as big business blocks entry to farming
Land rights not just issue for developing world as report shows public subsidies help a few firms ‘grab’ vast tracts of EU land
By John Vidal
Farmers harvest grain in Chernigov. In Ukraine, 10 giant agro-holdings now control about 2.8m hectares. Photograph: Genia Savilov/AFP/Getty Images
Vast tracts of land in Europe are being “grabbed” by large companies, speculators, wealthy foreign buyers and pension funds in a similar way to in developing countries, according to a major new report.
Chinese corporations, Middle Eastern sovereign wealth and hedge funds, as well as Russian oligarchs and giant agribusiness have all stepped up land acquisitions in the past decade in a process that the report says is preventing ordinary people farming, and concentrating agriculture and land wealth in few hands.
According to research by the Transnational Institute, Via Campesina and others, half of all farmland in the EU is now concentrated in the 3% of large farms that are more than 100 hectares (247 acres) in size. In some EU countries, land ownership is as unequal as it is in Brazil, Colombia and the Philippines.
Although peasant farmers and smallholders have been moving off the land for decades, speculators and commodity crop farmers are taking over vast tracts of land, says the 200-page report.
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2013-04-18 07:32:12
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