A Modern Day Land Grab

Back in the bad old, good old days there was a fair share of land grabbing occurring. First it was all manner of precious commodities; oil, gold, silver, gas. But now, we're talking food. And now we are talking fundamentals. Take a good look at who is leading the way. Consider, also, the implications:

Yet, in this dog-eat-dog world, the very actions that the rich countries are taking will increase the likelihood of a global food shortage. The land being grabbed by outside powers has its own precious ecosystems and much of it is used, at least for parts of the year, by local people. Even though governments say that they are only selling ‘empty’ or ‘marginal’ land, such a concept simply does not exist for many of the traditional peasant and indigenous communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Is this the way we gracefully power down, or are we going to wind up between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to go?