system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 why people in third world countries starve when people used to be able to live off the land?

I am not trying to judge them in any way, just something I think about sometimes.  We hear all the time about people in Africa etc. dying of thirst and hunger.  People have lived there for a long time, and somehow survived off the land.  What changed?
gpt
Partial explanation: Because they (who are starving) don't own any fertile land, or enough land or enough tools.

The original industrialism in England happened when people were forced off of their land by wealthy and powerful large-scale estate-owners. The people who were forced away became "cheap labour" who could be employed in the cities. Similar things are happening today. People are moving from their self-sufficient lives to work in sweatshops in big cities. Some people see this as a proof of how hard living off the land is. But others, including me, would say that it is because they are effectively forced. Governments make deals with big industries like mining, industrial agriculture etc. and let them buy land for cheap, land that people live on. If the land isn't sold away, they might be forced away by pollution or similar. Or, they are lured away by promises of wealth. Or, they have been specialized and dependent on others in their economy, so they don't have the skills to live off the land completely, and they can not compete with the low prices of large scale producers, so whatever they sold doesn't make them any money anymore.

There is a lot of bribing and corruption going on, but there is also the idea that this behaviour is good for "the economy" of the country. Forcing people from their land not only makes room for large scale production on the country side, it "liberates" people into being cheap labourers in factories, causing overall production to increase. These governments are imitating what happened in England, because they believe that it is "how industrialisation happens" and is the way you must do it.

In Africa, lots of old colonialism plays a big role too. The British, Belgians and others simply took the land, and when decolonisation happened, the land didn't end up back with "the people" but is controlled by wealthy landowners, warlords or corrupt governments.

**TL;DR Just because there is land to be farmed doesn't mean that those who own/control the land are ready to give it up just to be nice to starving people.**