Page 47 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 21

Food Health
Food Health

The inseparable trio:

land grabbing, deforestation, and climate crisis

by GRAIN | 11 Feb 2022

here is overwhelming ev- for between 16% and 27% of all bia, and Argentina clearly reveal
idence of a link between anthropogenic emissions. this link, and provide some ballpark
deforestation and the cli- figures for one of the regions of the
Tmate crisis, and although However, there has not yet been world where land concentration and
the figures vary between studies, it an in-depth study carried out into industrial agriculture and livestock
is clear that it is responsible for a the impact of land grabbing on production are most rampant.
significant share of greenhouse gas deforestation, and therefore also
emissions. on climate change, over the last few In the Atlas of GM Agribusiness in
decades. It goes without saying that the Southern Cone, we highlight-
According to our investigations at buying, renting, or otherwise ob- ed the destruction of more than
GRAIN, these figures are around taining land for industrial monocrop 2 million hectares per year from
15% - 18% of total emissions (with production involves clearing vast the beginning of the 1990s until
a total of 44% - 57% from the agri- expanses of forest and other fragile 2017, ranging from the Brazilian
food system as a whole). A recent ecosystems such as wetlands and the and Bolivian Amazon to the Gran
Greenpeace report puts greenhouse Brazilian Cerrado, due to the nature Chaco of Paraguay and Argentina.
gas emissions from deforestation of this agricultural model which sees We wrote that “in this region, the
at 23% of total emissions, and the these ecosystems as an “obstacle” expansion of GM agribusiness
latest IPCC reports indicate that to the development of monocrop- has given rise to one of the worst
emissions from agricultural activity ping. Nevertheless, recent reports cases of land concentration, land
and expansion of agricultural land on deforestation in Brazil, Colom- grabbing, and takeover of land by
for the global food system account foreign interests in Latin America,

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