#reality cheque

[clockworkfiction1822]

I haven’t cashed my reality cheques in for a long time. I’m pretty sure they’re expired.

[greenspaceforsaul-blog]

"We have housing for [the nomads] too..."

I saved an article from the Toronto Star (Africa's Great Land Rush by Rick Westhead, published 3 December 2011) which investigates how companies from countries such as China, India and Saudi Arabia have snapped up 227 million hectares of farmland from developing countries at prices as low as $1 per hectare and the effect that is having on locals and their ways of life.

I want to share a last bit of one section of the article.  A small piece of background information: Singh works for Karuturi, an Indian company that develops lands for industrial agriculture.

"We are building houses.  We are not employing children, we need more people to work our farms," Singh says.

But ActionAid's Mtinda doesn't buy it.  He says there are reports of sprawling commercial farms destroying the livelihoods of the nomadic Maasai herders, who have shepherded livestock across the African plains for centuries.

Singh insists Karuturi wants to make life better for the Maasai.

"We have housing for them, too," Singh says.  "It's safer and it's better than what they have now."

I understand that countries like China and India have growing populations and that people need food, but I can't help but think that there's got to be a better way to approach this.

If you would like a copy of the article or to discuss this further, please drop me a line.

[justanalaighbreathe]

reality cheque (reblogging)

so sick of the prolonged barbie phase…. bE yourself young ladY

Barbies were made by man; not by GOD nor in his image…