Should Land Ownership Be Considered a Basic Human Right?
What is a human without land?
When I was living in the apartment, we used to have a community garden, where a person would request to get a square meter plot where we could grow our own vegetables. At that time I thought it was not worth my time, simply because the cost of labor is 100 fold of what that little plot could produce. Though I enjoy getting my organics, I simply thought it was not worth my time.
But as time went on, I began to appreciate the importance of having access to land leave alone owning a land.
As society progressed we became extremely specialized into different tasks for our communities, something that is not a bad thing, but the question lingers, at what cost?
I have always been an inventor at heart. Since I was a little kid, I used to modify and repair wrist watches, I used to create little toys and so on. But when I grew up, I had always had new ideas of building different things and experimenting on different things. But the biggest hurdle was access to land, access a large space where I could put my theories to the test.
So the truth is that an average North American or European, doesn’t have an access to land, what I mean by land is the field where someone can do whatever they wish to do with it, not a garage, not a park and not a backyard.
I think we do take this for granted because it has become our lifestyle. Those who have inherited a large farm from their family are lucky.
What I think about Land
My first observation was when I went to Africa, there were a bunch of young moms from Europe. The interesting thing is this African house was a typical farm house, lots of animals, a large house and lots of fields to play around. At first we noticed that the kids who grew up in apartments were not even willing to walk around the house freely, thinking that other rooms are other apartments.
Then when the pandemic hit the World, I began to wonder, what would happen to those who cannot sustain themselves. In Alberta, Canada, for example, they mostly import food because the weather is so cold over six months to be able to grow anything. In situations like the lockdown, the majority of people in urban areas will not be able to sustain themselves, simply because they don’t have access to land. Those with houses might be able to pull up some tricks, but those who live on the 10th floor, will start chewing their pets.
Here are the advantages of owning a land
- Growing your own food, since food is a basic human need, then the ability to grow your own healthy food should also be considered as a basic need.
- Raising animals, Besides food animals can also be a secondary source of income, a lot of people who live in urban areas don’t know this, but if you raise animals, you can also trade their products for spare cash.
- Playground, when I talk about play ground someone might think it’s only for kids, but that’s not it. Even adults need space to create things, get some space to work on your projects and so on.
- Reduces the cost of living. We face a huge cost of living because we depend so much on the economy, but if you own a land you don’t have to pay for rent anymore, you can grow your own food, and find other ways to generate extra income.
- Help Environment. if each person raises their own animals, on small scale, this will reduce those animal farms and food industry. This will help the environment to heal.
This might not be enough reason for someone to own a land, but I still think human beings should have the right to own a land, and land should be given free by the government.
