Agribusiness
Export-oriented industrial agriculture of a few globally traded commodities (like soy, maize and rice), as well as meat production, destroy forests, the diversity of seeds and small-scale farming systems. They also uproot established land use patterns and threaten food sovereignty.
The government claims that small-scale agriculture is responsible for deforestation. But this claim ignores government policies that drive land-use changes and destructive markets as well as the exclusion of indigenous peoples through the creation of reserves.
The mega-infrastructure corridors prioritized in ambitious investment programmes spanning the african continent are squarely focused on facilitating the export of minerals and agricultural commodity crops and the import of processed foods and manufactured goods.
