Page 48 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 21

Food Health

and indeed the world”.

The situation has worsened over the
last few years, as the agribusiness
model requires constant expansion
of its boundaries, and as a result is
now encroaching on the region’s
most fragile ecosystems: the Bra-
zilian Cerrado, the Amazon region,
and the Gran Chaco. Some data is
provided in the next paragraph to
demonstrate the scale of the issue
and its context: use of illegal mecha-
nisms to take over land for industrial 2020, the Cerrado lost 19.8% of its instruments used for land grabbing
livestock production and farming, native vegetation, corresponding (known as “grilagem” in Brazil)
violence against local communities, to 26,500,000 hectares—an area which is part of the extension of
and the complicity of the States in bigger than Piauí. The expansion of the capitalist agricultural frontier
these land grabs. agriculture and livestock production into the land of indigenous peoples
in the biome over the same peri- and traditional communities”.
In the Cerrado region of Brazil, od almost exactly mirrors this—
over 850 thousand hectares of bi- 26,200,000 hectares were given over In the north of the Amazon region,
ome were destroyed between August to this activity. Currently, agriculture in Colombia, livestock farming
2020 and July 2021, according to and livestock production make up has developed at such a rate that 1
the latest report from the National 44.2% of the biome. Ane Alencar, million head of cattle were added
Institute for Space Research (INPE), Director of Science at the IPAM between 2016 and 2019, bringing
a research unit of the Brazilian (Amazon Environmental Research the total up to 2,021,829. Over these
Ministry of Science, Technology, Institute) states this in clear terms: three years, 300,415 hectares were
and Innovations (MCTI). Within the “For years, MATOPIBA has been deforested in the municipalities of
Cerrado, the region of MATOPIBA one of the regions of the country San Vicente del Caguán, Cartagena
(composed of the states of Maran- where most native vegetation has del Chairá, La Macarena, San José
hão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia) has been converted into agricultural del Guaviare, El Retorno, Cala-
seen the worst increase in deforesta- land”. mar, Miraflores, and Solano, all of
tion— 61.3% (522,700 hectares) of which are part of this region. The
the total biome destroyed between In the Amazon region, deforestation figures on land concentration in
August 2020 and July 2021 was lo- and deliberately started forest fires Colombia, as in almost all of Latin
cated in this region. The 2002-2021 have also been directly linked to America, are staggering—according
Prodes programme, which calculates agribusiness and its land-grabbing to the 2019 National Agricultural
deforestation in the Amazon using strategies. In August 2019, a group Survey (CNA), 73.8% of the area
satellites, has declared this a new of landowners hatched a plan to in hectares is concentrated in 0.2%
record; even worse than 2017, when burn an expanse of the Brazilian of the agricultural production units
61.1% of deforestation in the Cerra- Amazon forest in the south-west- (UPAs). This survey also shows that
do took place within the region. ern region of the state of Pará, on 77.9% of the total productive area
what became known as the “Day of 50 million hectares is occupied
According to the platform MapBio- of Fire”. The next year, further to by livestock production activities.
mas, Tocantins and Maranhão, in the south, fires started on livestock
that order, are the states which have farms supplying the large meat- In Argentina, a recent report from
lost most native savannah vegetation packing systems quickly spread LandMatrix reveals that 20,000 hect-
over the last decade. This initiative and ravaged 4.1 million hectares of ares were deforested in the Chaco
has revealed that in the MATOPI- the Pantanal wetlands which run Salteño region in 2020, and that in
BA region the area of land used for along the borders with Paraguay 2021 public hearings were held for
agriculture and livestock production and Bolivia. The “Agro é Fogo” changes of land use for more than
has more than doubled over the campaign draws a clear conclusion: 21,000 hectares. These figures are in
last 36 years. Between 1985 and “Forest fires and deforestation are addition to the deforestation which

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