For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Environment and Climate Resource Center page, Millions Against Monsanto page and our Farm Issues page.

Just as biofuels have gobbled up farmland that should have been growing food so the push on biomass by Monsanto, Cargill and others will see an ‘unprecedented’ grab on land, plants and biodiverse-rich forests.

The world is on the brink of a new land grab, with companies like Cargill and Monsanto part of a wider attempt to ‘grab’ control of the productive capacity of the planet, argues a new book ‘Earth Grab’.

So far humans use one-quarter of the planet’s land-based biomass, essentially the earth’s living matter, to provide food, heat and shelter.

Corporate plans for the coming ‘green economy’ will transform the earth’s biomass, including grasses, woodchip and algae into the next generation of biofuels. We’ve already started using it to create biofuels, but thanks to technological advances we’ll soon be able to use much more of it for generating electricity, fertilisers and chemicals.

The result, according to the authors, will be a grab on the planet’s last remaining suitable biomass, mostly biodiverse-rich tropical forests in Africa, Asia and South America.