The Same Financial Firms Responsible For Our Economic Crisis Are Driving Us Toward a Global Food Disaster

US and EU investors -- including US universities, pension funds and investment firms -- are involved in unprecedented land grabs currently taking place in Africa, according to a series of investigative reports released on Wednesday by the Oakland Institute.
The Oakland Institute spent over a year working undercover to gather information on land deals in Ethiopia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Sudan.
The reports show how land deals have a number of effects, including the destabilization of food prices, mass displacement and environmental damage.
"The same financial firms that drove us into a global recession by inflating the real estate bubble through risky financial maneuvers are now doing the same with the world's food supply," said Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute.
"In Africa," she added, "this is resulting in the displacement of small farmers, environmental devastation, water loss and further political instability."
These deals are often presented as agricultural investment, providing much-needed economic funds, creating jobs and infrastructure in developing countries.
Yet, the report argues, many of the deals have negative impacts. These include inadequate participation of local populations, misinformation, lack of adequate compensation, especially for women or indigenous populations.
The intention of releasing the reports is not to curb agricultural investment but rather to ensure that the funding does what it promises to do and minimizes the deleterious effects.
The "Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa" reports reveal that these largely unregulated land purchases are resulting in virtually none of the promised benefits for native populations, but instead are forcing millions of small farmers off ancestral lands and small, local food farms in order to make room for export commodities, including biofuels and cut flowers.
So there is an inversion of small, local farming to industrialized agriculture...e="clear: both; text-align: center;">

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Tina Gerhardt @'Alternet'