After reading about the many land deals that have occurred recently, I began to notice that the overriding theme seemed to be that these “land grabs” were detrimental. Which may be the case, however, these countries who are acquiring land may have motives less devious than originally expected. City, state and federal leader’s jobs are to act in the best interest of their people. These land grabs could simply be countries protecting their own self-interests first. If the growing number of people in India’s didn’t think their leader’s actions were going to provide for them in the future, they would replace those leaders. With a skyrocketing population, a warming climate and the prospects of less available water it is understandable why India would want to purchase land to protect their future interests. It is hard to argue that they won’t likely need that land in the near future.
So if the people of India care about the wellbeing of Africans and every other human, just not as much as their own, can we blame them? Our natural instincts have us programmed to protect our pack or family first. This group dynamic likely helped the earliest humans to survive and flourish. Not to say that India doesn’t care about the people of Africa or the rest of the world, but if they’re forced to choose who goes hungry it’s unlikely they volunteer. While it is unknown if we will ever get to that point, it is certainly well within the range of scenarios as we move forward into our future climate that we are shaping. Bottom line is the residents of the country selling land need to see some of the profit or be included in some way. Unfortunately, we know this doesn’t always happen. What good are the World Bank and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization principles governing land acquisitions when there is nothing in place to enforce the principles? Same as when a climate change agreement is not fulfilled, the agreement is worthless. International agreements can only truly be effective when all parties involved are held accountable.