Capitalism of Dispossession in the Palm Oil

Plantations in the Countries of the Global South -

Contexts, Struggles and Peasant Resistance
 

Covid-19 shakes agro-industrial capitalism on the planet

Nubia Barrera Silva

This paper presents critical moments from prehistory through civilisation to financial capitalism, represented by the transnational corporations of oil palm monoculture; critical moments due to insurmountable ecological fractures with global impact, occurring in fragile ecosystems of humid tropical forests in Asia, Africa and the Americas. In historical evolution, between different ecological fractures, two major climatic milestones have emerged: (i) The transatlantic invasion in the Americas and Africa (16th century), gave rise to the “Cold Ice Age” with the death of 60 million of the native population. It is the beginning of the Anthropocene. (ii) The reconversion of humid tropical forests by agri-food agriculture has been intensified in expropriated lands without the consent of medium and small landowners organised in associations of land recovery, the defence of the common goods and of human rights with tens of thousands of people murdered in the three continents.

The commodification of land has deepened the ecological, social and economic crises. The unprecedented global pandemic of the covid-19 virus comes from the destruction of the habitats of species of wild animals and plants and the subsequent migration to humans. The neoliberal model is unsupportable in the sustainable conservation of nature and the planet's economy. A change in the capitalist economy is urgently needed.

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