permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Charles de Matas wrote:
> I think a major problem in latin american countries is land tenure and 
> availability of land.  Many "farmers" are really just agricultural workers, 
> forming a proletariat.  They may have little or no land of their own and 
> have to work for others at minimum or sub-minimum wages.  I've heard that 
> Mexico has one of the better land distribution systems in latin america, and 
> in other countries land distribution is more skewed towards larger ranches, 
> estates, plantations etc.
>    Here in Trinidad, despite the downsizing of the sugar industry, the 
> government keeps delaying the distribution of idle lands to former sugar 
> workers as it promised.  The government also seems to be going ahead with 
> aluminium smelters which will cause health problems from pollution and also 
> require hundreds of acres of secondary forest to be cleared.  This is done 
> in the name of economic "development", but I think in the long run it will 
> mean more dependency on a few jobs provided by multinational companies who 
> will make billions in profits.

Cement plants and pollution associated with their operation in Puerto Rico is 
a similar scenario.
Absentee landlords making huge profits at the expense of people living in the 
plant's locales.