Land is the new frontier to greenwash corporate sins
Letter by John Meadley and CUSP director Tim Jackson to the Financial Times, highlighting the urgent need for decent land use policy, to prevent the same predatory financial practices prevalent in the social care sector from taking hold in rural communities too.
11 February 2022
Letter to the FT Editor
Farmland is fast becoming a new frontier for private wealth: a place to greenwash corporate sins, subsidised at the government’s expense… The parallels to the financialisation of social care are striking.
When government policy and public money are trained on the value of agricultural land, there is no doubt that Merryn Somerset Webb is right to point to the “growth potential of natural capital” (Opinion, FT Money, February 5). But there is a vital word missing here — people.
The financial hawks are already circling, watching for opportunities to offset their carbon footprint by buying land to rewild or plant trees, without a thought for the cost to local communities of rising land prices.
Farmland is fast becoming a new frontier for private wealth: a place to “greenwash” corporate sins, subsidised at the government’s expense, safe in the knowledge that the escalating price of land will underwrite all your costs in the long run.
The parallels to the “financialisation” of social care are striking. The outcomes there were disastrous: suppressed wages, assets stripped of value, offshore wealth from property price speculation and a care system in crisis. This must not happen with the nation’s land and its rural economies. Without healthy soil and vibrant rural communities, able to own and to make decisions about land use for a fairer and more sustainable future, we would have no wealth at all.
John Meadley
Honorary President, Pasture for Life
Professor Tim Jackson
Commissioner, Food, Farming and Countryside Commission
This letter first appeared in the Financial Times on 11 February 2022, and has been reposted with permission from the publisher and the co-authors.
