Klaus Hart Brasilientexte

Why the increase in the price of our foodstuffs? Due to the financial crisis, speculators now prefer to invest their money in something more secure than volatile paper. So they invest in purchasing land.

Another factor in the price rise of foods is the expansion of agro fuel. More land on which to plant, resulting in ethanol, means fewer areas to farm what is required to fill our plates.

Foodstuffs are produced for those who can buy them and not for those who are hungry (capitalism’s perverse logic). Nowadays we also plant what is required to make cars go. Petroleum is no longer as abundant as it used to be.

Monoculture is adopted on the latifundium’s huge expanse. Soy, wheat and corn are grown… for export. Brazil today has the largest animal herd in the world however meat has become a luxury. Added to this is the increase in the price of fertilizers and fuels and the demand for food in over populated Asia. More demand means higher prices. China has supplanted the US as Brazil’s chief commercial partner.

The de-nationalising of Brazilian land is added to this conjuncture. A country can no longer be bought, as in colonial times. Better said, it can, from the bottom up, bit by bit.

For decades now the Congress is about to establish limits for the purchase of land by foreigners. While our members of congress file away projects, land in Brazil is literally being eaten up.

In 2010 NAI Commercial Properties, a transnational real estate business actively working in 55 countries bought, for foreigners, 30 ranches in the states of Goias, Mato Grosso, Sao Paulo, Parana, Bahia and Tocantins. This totals 96,000 hectares! Many were bought with investment funds from other countries, like two ranches in Pedro Afonso in Tocantins, which added up to 40,000 hectares, costing R$240 million. R$6.00 was paid per hectare. Today a hectare in the state of Sao Paulo is worth between R$30,000 and R$40,000. Investing in land is more lucrative than investing on the stock exchange.

According to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), last year approximately US$14 billion were paid for agricultural lands world wide. The Brazilian lands were included in the package. It is estimated that more than 20% of commodity areas for export are held by NAI.

The NAI office in Brazil has approximately 200 registered investment funds all waiting to purchase Brazilian lands for agricultural purposes.

Food today is the most sophisticated war weapon. Most countries spend between 60% and 70% of their budget to purchase food. It’s not strange that large food companies invest heavily in oligopolies, culminating with genetically modified seeds which means cultivation depends on two or three large transnationals.

The Lula government spoke much about the sovereignty of food. Dilma’s government adopted the theme “Brazil: a rich country is a country without poverty”. In order to make this dream come true it is necessary to take measures more drastic than to merely tighten belts regarding public funds.

If it doesn’t avoid the de-nationalisation of our territory (and, thus, our agriculture), promote agrarian reform, prioritise family agriculture and rigourously struggle against deforestation and slave labour, Brazil will appear to be like the pantry on colonial plantations: the poor and hungry in the slaves’ quarters while in the distance, the slave owner’s house feasting at table at our expense.