4 ms·

Just kind of a pity that some of the most productive farmland in the world now resembles the surface of Mars, along with hundreds of thousands dead and millions

Just kind of a pity that some of the most productive farmland in the world now resembles the surface of Mars, along with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.

cpursley 4y ago
If you wanna have your mind blown, start looking into who bought up a lot of that farmland (and agricultural enterprise) starting after the 2014 uh, government restructuring. Hint: it’s not the Ukrainians. And they were changing laws to allow more foreign takeover of Ukrainian agriculture by multinationals all the way up to the invasion.
- lm28469 4y ago
  You mean that? : https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/09/13/fact-check-ukraines-president-did-not-sell-farmland-us-companies/7942775001/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/09/13/fact... Looks like the type of comment you'd find on a boomer conspiracy theorists facebook group
  - cpursley 4y ago
    “Cargill, which owns a majority stake in a deep-sea port near Odessa” https://www.world-grain.com/articles/16539-ports-grain-facilities-shut-down-in-ukraine https://www.world-grain.com/articles/16539-ports-grain-facil... https://www.kyivpost.com/post/7480 https://www.kyivpost.com/post/7480 https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/Brief_CorporateTakeoverofUkraine_0.pdf https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/... https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-agriculture-farmland-economy-/31336984.html https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-agriculture-farmland-economy...
    - lm28469 4y ago
      You could have posted that directly instead of making very vague insinuations that no one can source by themselves unless they already know what you're talking about
      - cpursley 4y ago
        That’s why I suggested folks start looking into it. I was actually interested in investing into Ukrainian farm land over a decade ago but decided against it after a little due diligence (the land ownership and consolidation was too complex and too much corruption despite basement bargain land prices).
  - scythe 4y ago
    Even the article you posted admits they're relying on a technicality: >in 2014 Cargill did buy a 5% share in UkrLandFarming, one of the largest landholders in Ukraine >Despite the moratorium on private land transfers, more than two million hectares — or about 7,700 square miles — of land have ended up being controlled by foreign companies through leases, Mousseau said. The largest investors are companies from Cyprus, the U.S. and the Netherlands.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    The intersection between non-absurd[0] conspiracy theories, culture wars and journalism never ceases to amaze me. The article you linked thoroughly debunks the claim that "Zelenskyy sold 17 million hectares of farmland to U.S. corporations". Fine, except I imagine it's not really what anyone repeating it was interested in. The "Zelensky", "sold", and "17 million" bits are minor details that don't change the thrust of the claim, which is that US interests control huge amounts of farmland in the Ukraine. This presumably happened just before the war and means that the US... something something, blah blah - I'm not interested in pursuing this further, as I doubt there's anything insightful to discover there. But my point is, the article focused on debunking the details and called the claim false, even though it actually proved the core of the claim true. "Zelensky sold 17 million hectares" may not be precisely equivalent to "western corporations took control of at least 3 million hectares", but it still barks up the same tree. But instead of exploring the more accurate version of the claim to see if it leads anywhere interesting, we just have one group sharing the spiced up pop version, the other debunking the irrelevant details of it, and both being smug about how superior they are to the idiots on the other side. Smh. -- [0] - I.e. ones not involving aliens, the Illuminati, reptilians, etc.
- diordiderot 4y ago
  Ukraine has strict agricultural laws prohibiting foreign companies from owning land.
  - cpursley 4y ago
    Had: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-agriculture-farmland-economy-/31336984.html https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-agriculture-farmland-economy...
    - diordiderot 4y ago
      Thats depressing. Goodbye family farms
      - mywittyname 4y ago
        Family farms are inherently inefficient compared to what a large corporation can achieve. The costs of the machinery necessary to work the land efficiency requires some minimum acreage to become cost effective. Under that threshold, "family farmers" need to either rent equipment seasonally, own and maintain older equipment, or lease their land to those with equipment in exchange for a cut of the harvest. It's been like this for a while, in the USA at least. I remember growing up it was common for people to lease out the land near their homes. Every season, you'd see combines driving down the roads from one patch of land to the other. People who farmed the land themselves typically did so for fun.
        diordiderot 4y ago
        Sorry for the late reply. I think our institutions have been so good at creating 'efficiency' that we've been able to discover the downsides. Fragility, monopoly, monopsony. All things that are a net negative but still count as efficiency.
- oblio 4y ago
  > If you wanna have your mind blown, start looking into who bought up a lot of that farmland (and agricultural enterprise) starting after the 2014 uh, government restructuring. Hint: it’s not the Ukrainians. And they were changing laws to allow more foreign takeover of Ukrainian agriculture up to the invasion. I'm not sure I understand the comment. Is what you're presenting negative?
- WeylandYutani 4y ago
  Agriculture has been owned by global multinational corporations for decades. It's a free market. You think the Dutch state owns farms? No it's banks. Ukraine opened itself up to foreign investment and small family run farms are swallowed up. Happened everywhere and now it's happening in Ukraine.
jacooper 4y ago
Sudan exists, although is probably not in a better shape.

Just kind of a pity that some of the most productive farmland in the world now resembles the surface of Mars, along with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.

cpursley 4y ago

If you wanna have your mind blown, start looking into who bought up a lot of that farmland (and agricultural enterprise) starting after the 2014 uh, government restructuring. Hint: it’s not the Ukrainians. And they were changing laws to allow more foreign takeover of Ukrainian agriculture by multinationals all the way up to the invasion.

lm28469 4y ago
You mean that? : https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/09/13/fact-check-ukraines-president-did-not-sell-farmland-us-companies/7942775001/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/09/13/fact... Looks like the type of comment you'd find on a boomer conspiracy theorists facebook group
- cpursley 4y ago
  “Cargill, which owns a majority stake in a deep-sea port near Odessa” https://www.world-grain.com/articles/16539-ports-grain-facilities-shut-down-in-ukraine https://www.world-grain.com/articles/16539-ports-grain-facil... https://www.kyivpost.com/post/7480 https://www.kyivpost.com/post/7480 https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/Brief_CorporateTakeoverofUkraine_0.pdf https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/... https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-agriculture-farmland-economy-/31336984.html https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-agriculture-farmland-economy...
  - lm28469 4y ago
    You could have posted that directly instead of making very vague insinuations that no one can source by themselves unless they already know what you're talking about
    - cpursley 4y ago
      That’s why I suggested folks start looking into it. I was actually interested in investing into Ukrainian farm land over a decade ago but decided against it after a little due diligence (the land ownership and consolidation was too complex and too much corruption despite basement bargain land prices).
- scythe 4y ago
  Even the article you posted admits they're relying on a technicality: >in 2014 Cargill did buy a 5% share in UkrLandFarming, one of the largest landholders in Ukraine >Despite the moratorium on private land transfers, more than two million hectares — or about 7,700 square miles — of land have ended up being controlled by foreign companies through leases, Mousseau said. The largest investors are companies from Cyprus, the U.S. and the Netherlands.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  The intersection between non-absurd[0] conspiracy theories, culture wars and journalism never ceases to amaze me. The article you linked thoroughly debunks the claim that "Zelenskyy sold 17 million hectares of farmland to U.S. corporations". Fine, except I imagine it's not really what anyone repeating it was interested in. The "Zelensky", "sold", and "17 million" bits are minor details that don't change the thrust of the claim, which is that US interests control huge amounts of farmland in the Ukraine. This presumably happened just before the war and means that the US... something something, blah blah - I'm not interested in pursuing this further, as I doubt there's anything insightful to discover there. But my point is, the article focused on debunking the details and called the claim false, even though it actually proved the core of the claim true. "Zelensky sold 17 million hectares" may not be precisely equivalent to "western corporations took control of at least 3 million hectares", but it still barks up the same tree. But instead of exploring the more accurate version of the claim to see if it leads anywhere interesting, we just have one group sharing the spiced up pop version, the other debunking the irrelevant details of it, and both being smug about how superior they are to the idiots on the other side. Smh. -- [0] - I.e. ones not involving aliens, the Illuminati, reptilians, etc.
diordiderot 4y ago
Ukraine has strict agricultural laws prohibiting foreign companies from owning land.
- cpursley 4y ago
  Had: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-agriculture-farmland-economy-/31336984.html https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-agriculture-farmland-economy...
  - diordiderot 4y ago
    Thats depressing. Goodbye family farms
    - mywittyname 4y ago
      Family farms are inherently inefficient compared to what a large corporation can achieve. The costs of the machinery necessary to work the land efficiency requires some minimum acreage to become cost effective. Under that threshold, "family farmers" need to either rent equipment seasonally, own and maintain older equipment, or lease their land to those with equipment in exchange for a cut of the harvest. It's been like this for a while, in the USA at least. I remember growing up it was common for people to lease out the land near their homes. Every season, you'd see combines driving down the roads from one patch of land to the other. People who farmed the land themselves typically did so for fun.
      - diordiderot 4y ago
        Sorry for the late reply. I think our institutions have been so good at creating 'efficiency' that we've been able to discover the downsides. Fragility, monopoly, monopsony. All things that are a net negative but still count as efficiency.
oblio 4y ago
> If you wanna have your mind blown, start looking into who bought up a lot of that farmland (and agricultural enterprise) starting after the 2014 uh, government restructuring. Hint: it’s not the Ukrainians. And they were changing laws to allow more foreign takeover of Ukrainian agriculture up to the invasion. I'm not sure I understand the comment. Is what you're presenting negative?
WeylandYutani 4y ago
Agriculture has been owned by global multinational corporations for decades. It's a free market. You think the Dutch state owns farms? No it's banks. Ukraine opened itself up to foreign investment and small family run farms are swallowed up. Happened everywhere and now it's happening in Ukraine.

jacooper 4y ago

Sudan exists, although is probably not in a better shape.