Rural to urban migration

Destroying rural structures and communities

When intensive farming and cheap imported food devastate the livelihoods of local farmers, they are then faced with the choice of rural unemployment and poverty or migrating to cities in search of work.

The result is a swell of urban unskilled (although rural skilled) looking for work. This migration drives down wages in urban areas and adds to the number of poor people in cities who cannot afford cheap food. It also causes urban overcrowding, pressure on services, unemployment and homelessness.

Conversely, rural areas are depopulated and rural structures and landscapes changed. Where intensive farming has moved in, social scientists have recorded ‘economic stratification’ – where the rich become richer, and the poor become poorer.

In Santa Catarina, Brazil, 20,000 families left the countryside in 1998, many leaving pig and poultry production because they could not compete with the big corporations.