This article aims to highlight stories which show the clash between small farmers and big, usually corporate or state-backed, agriculture. This clash is part of a fight that is occurring across the world, with some governments wanting control of land in order to feed their populations and others, usually in the business world, wanting to turn land into a commodity so they can gain increased profits.
Well over a majority of the world’s contributions to global warming comes from the actions of four industrialized states (United States, Japan, Canada and Australia) and one region (Europe), and those living in those states. The advent of a global climate catastrophe is key to buying land, since 40% of the world’s population may face a “serious drinking water shortage” within the next half-century, unless there is bold and quick action.
However, there are other factors to the fight over land across the world. One of the main battlegrounds is the African continent, where not only are many states dependent on only one resource or cash crop to gain money from exports, but numerous states were forced by the European colonizers to change from subsistence to cash crops, which caused parts of Africa to suffer from drought.