Open access to land for food

Sowing seeds of an idea...

At some point in the collapse, it will become necessary to nationalise all unproductive land and distribute it to those willing to produce food for local consumption (this is already happening in Venezuela and Brazil - and some other countries).  Buying land is not itself a form of security - it is necessary to produce food on that land for it to be socially useful.

As an interim measure, trasnitionsists should push governments for a general legal permission to occupy derelict land and produce food on it in a sustainable way.  Notices could be posted advising landlords that unless the land is brought into production within, say, 6 months then it will be legally occupied and planted with food crops.  Repossession of occupied land would then be granted only after harvest of those crops.  Voluntary release of occupied lands after 3-5 years of crop rotation could be written into the generalised legal permission to prevent the establishment of squatter rights under civil law and encourage proper soil stewardship.

We in Ireland have huge land resources around our cities which are now under public ownership as part of the NAMA process.  These lands will not be developed and will form very useful green belt areas ideally located for local food production.

Government will need to be forced to grant generalised licences initially by high-profile illegal occupations, as happened in Brazil and Venezuela.

-- This was from a comment on the post "My Conference - Shaun Chamberlin on Stoneleigh's peak oil/finance talk".
Author: Betterworld Now

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