Land & Sovereignty in the Americas: Bob St. Peter, Maine

6 August 2013

Bob St. Peter, a landless farmer and the head of Food for Maine’s Future, knows first hand the struggles of family farms in America today.

Bob St. Peter, a landless farmer and the head of Food for Maine’s Future, knows first hand the struggles of family farms in America today, from the increasing prices of land to the lack of capital and knowledge transfer between aging farmers (never-left-the-landers) and a new generation of young adults moving away from urban environments to pursue the agrarian lifestyle (back-to-the-landers). Amid these challenges, the economics of food continue to reinforce the development patters destroying family farms in the U.S. Bob discusses these topics, and how communities can look elsewhere for inspiration and solutions for resisting, overcoming and replacing current patterns of land concentration and the devaluing of agrarian work.

This video is part of the Land & Sovereignty in the Americas series, which pulls together research and analysis from activists and scholars working to understand and halt the alarming trend in "land grabbing"-from rural Brazil and Central America to US cities like Oakland and Detroit--and to support rural and urban communities in their efforts to protect their lands as the basis for self-determination, food justice and food sovereignty. The Land and Sovereignty in the Americas series is a project of the Land & Sovereignty in the Americas (LSA) activist-researcher collective, coordinated by Food First with the Transnational Institute.

Recorded Saturday, June 30, 2012 in Oakland, CA.

Recent publications from Agrarian Justice

Bittersweet Harvest A European Union (EU) trade initiative intended to reduce poverty in the world’s poorest countries has driven thousands of Cambodian farming families into destitution and led to serious human rights violations. This report assesses the human rights impacts of the EU’s ‘Everything But Arms’ (EBA) trade scheme in Cambodia.	The Sugarcane Industry and the global economic crisis An examination of ethanol production in Brazil, highlighting the role of financial capital, the territorial expansion of agribusiness and the impacts on labour relations and indigenous peoples and peasant farmers.
A foreseeable disaster Why despite ten years of accumulating evidence on the social and environmental cost of agrofuels, does the European Commission persist with its failed policies? An analysis of the EU's bioeconomy vision, how it is fuelling land grabs in Africa, the agrofuels lobby that drives policy, and the alternative visions for energy that are being ignored.	UPDATE: Land concentration, land grabbing and people’s struggles in Europe Land issues and 'land grabs' are mostly associated with the global South, however 13 country studies in this updated landmark report reveal an accelerating grab and concentration of land across Europe.