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Increasing imbalances in the division of land ownership are a further obstacle to economic development in the South. In poor countries, a small number of large landowners possess most of the arable land, while vast numbers of small owners and tenants farm the remaining soils, which is often of inferior quality or on marginal lands where environmental degradation threatens agricultural production. Fewer and fewer households are able to subsist on herding, forestry or fishing. Commercial fishing reduces the catches of poor fishers, and foresters lose their rights to logging companies working under government concessions. The globalised food system has therefore created a perverse and paradoxical dynamic; the use of land for export production may reduce food costs in countries with advanced economies, but it can have tragic consequences for most of the families who live from farming in the developing world.

Global trading rules are also biased in favour of large agro-industrial businesses that grow crops for export, thereby penalising small farmers who grow food for local consumption. The average land holding per head among rural farmers in developing countries declined from 3.6 hectares in 1972, to 0.26 hectares in 1992 - and continues to fall. Unfavourable market conditions can also cause these families to fall into debt, forcing them to sell their land and migrate to urban areas. Estimates by the UN in 2000 suggested that up to 30 million people had been driven from rural areas as a result of agricultural liberalisation policies.

With a vast number of hungry people living in farm households, these structural conditions are a major cause of food insecurity and increasing poverty - leading to the social and environmental settings that are a major cause of ill health. WTO rules and free trade agreements encourage governments to prioritise trade concerns and business needs over public health needs and social spending, in effect trumping the right to health with the priorities of ‘export-led growth', positive terms of trade and the shareholders right to maximise profit.

The Power of Transnational Corporations

The process of economic globalisation has led to the concentration of power in the hands of a small number of transnational corporations, resulting in the accumulation of huge profits in the midst of chronic food insecurity and poverty for millions of people. As markets were liberalised and the role of governments scaled back over the past few decades, private property rights were strengthened through trade agreements, in particular the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Simultaneously, regional and bilateral trade agreements - signed at a rate of 15 per year in the 1990s - handed more power to large corporations, resulting in dramatically increased volumes of world trade.本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。