Why Cant People Feed Themselves - the Cash Crops Takeover

The Cash Crops Takeover

Growing up in a big city, full of every race and ethnic group I never thought much of why people could not feed themselves. Even now I just thought of the same stereotypical reasons why people could not feed themselves, lack of finances, homeless, or that was just how they had choose to live. After reading this article it gave me a new outlook on why people can’t feed themselves. Even though some may still choose to live their life as a nomad for many it seems that wealthy high class people have become greedy, and those who had learned to live off the land were forced to grow crops for mass production, and no longer for their needs.

Why can’t people feed themselves? First greed, before colonialism people could grow their own crops, and use them for trade for things they did not grow or things they may need. People learned to live off the land. They grew a variety of crops. Once colonialism took over, land owners were forced to either use their land to produce cash crops or risk losing their land. Colonialist decided to charge the peasants taxes to force them to comply with the demands of the world. Some farmers would have to lease part or all of their land to corporations in order to pay their taxes. Farmers were forced to become dependent upon cash crops. Because taxes had to be paid farmers were forced to do whatever they had to, to make sure they would be able to pay their taxes. Taxation caused farmer to neglect their own crops. Large corporations would pay landowner very little for their crops or the use of their land, and make huge profits from these cash crops. Farmers also became dependent of export crops. These wealthy corporations also came up with control board, such as The Cocoa Board, which was headed by John Cadbury of Cadbury Brothers. These board would take there part of the income earned from the farmers. The board would sale to different companies for a low price, then that company would up its price, so that the profit the grower made remained low.

Second reason people became unable to feed themselves was because, trading crops they grew for crop or other things they needed was no longer an option. Farmers had become dependent upon export crops. Peasants were once rich, rich with the things they needed to live their everyday lives. Colonialism left them working for what they could get by with. Most losing land that had been in their family for decades.