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One percent of the world’s farms operate 70% of farm fields, ranches and orchards, according to a report highlighting the impact of land inequality on climate and natural crises.
Since the 1980s, researchers found that control of land has become much more concentrated both directly through ownership and indirectly through contract farming, resulting in more destructive monocultures and fewer small plots. cared for.
Taking into account the rise in property values and the growth of landless populations for the first time, the report estimates that land inequality is 41% higher than previously believed.
The authors said the trend was driven by short-term financial instruments, increasingly shaping the global environment and human health.
“In the past, these instruments only worried the markets. They did not affect us individually. But now they touch all aspects of our lives because they are linked to the environmental crisis and the pandemic, ”said Ward Anseeuw, senior technical specialist with the International Land Coalition, who led the research together with a group of partners that included Oxfam and World Laboratorio of Inequality.
The study, published Tuesday, is based on 17 new research papers, as well as analysis of existing data and literature.
He says previous calculations of land inequality were based solely on the ownership and size of individual farms. On this basis, land inequality narrowed until the 1980s, after which it widened.
That trend is more pronounced with the new methodology, which takes into account additional factors such as multiple ownership, the quality and value of land, and the number of landless people.
Landlessness was lowest in China and Vietnam, and highest in Latin America, where the poorest 50% of people owned only 1% of the land.
Asia and Africa have the highest levels of smallholdings, where human participation tends to be higher than chemical and mechanical factors, and where terms are more likely to be generations rather than 10-year investment cycles. Around the world, between 80% and 90% of farms are family-owned or owned by small farmers. But they cover only a small and diminishing part of the land and commercial production.
Over the past four decades, the biggest shift from small to large has occurred in the United States and Europe, where ownership is in fewer hands and even individual farmers work under strict contracts for retailers, business conglomerates, and mutual funds.
Ward said these financial arrangements are now spilling over into the developing world, which is accelerating the decline in soil quality, overuse of water resources and the pace of deforestation.
“The concentration of ownership and control results in a greater drive to monocultures and more intensive agriculture, as mutual funds tend to work in 10-year cycles to generate returns,” he said.
This is also related to social problems, including poverty, migration, conflict, and the spread of zoonotic diseases like Covid-19.
To address this, the report recommends greater regulation and oversight of opaque land ownership systems, a change in tax regimes to support small farmers and better environmental management, and strong support for land rights of landowners. communities.
“Small farmers, family farmers, indigenous peoples and small communities are much more cautious about using the land. It’s not just about return on investment; it’s about culture, identity and leaving something for the next generation. They take care of much more and, in the long run, they produce more per unit area and destroy less ”.
