right now we are running out of cheap oil, but we have an oversupply of unemployed people. yet our industrialised ag policy (unwritten but pervasive) on the American model is to maximise "effiency" by minimising the amount of human labour needed per kilocalorie produced, and maximising the fossil fuel inputs ("energy slaves" which substitute for human labour and expertise). this form of farming often produces less biomass per hectare than diversified organic practice, thus failing to maximise return on another precious and shrinking resource (arable land) and is grossly wasteful of water (about to be a limiting resource in many countries).
I do not suggest that we pack the unemployed off to forced agrarian labour camps in some kind of Maoist re-education programme; but if I were chronically unemployed and my children had only the same to look forward to, and if I were offered "40 acres and a mule" of my very own plus training in sustainable ag practise and assistance in finding regional markets, I would jump at the chance. the yeoman farmer makes a pretty solid middle class on which to anchor a stable polity; and with today's electronic communications networks there is no need for the rural community to be cut off from cultural and educational stimulation, news, political life etc.
there is also the fascinating potential for urban farming -- that very activity which the Mugabe government (at a time of food shortages!) recently threatened to outlaw, apparently as part of its campaign to evict shantytown dwellers and to undermine any attempts at local food security in urban areas. if the government is paying for unemployed persons to sit idle, why not pay them to produce food for local consumption?
just a thought... The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
The 77 Bank, Ltd., headquartered in Miyagi Prefecture in northern Japan, recently announced the results of a study...
that's much better. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
I believe it's possible to evolve towards something of the kind you mention, which could offer the benefits you mention. But it would be a huge evolution -- demanding almost Maoist intervention, in spite of what you say -- if it were to significantly reduce unemployment. What government agency, with what powers, would redistribute land? After all, "40 acres and a mule" came after a bitter civil war...
Perhaps a redefinition of the CAP in favour of small farmers might begin a slide. Currently, the way the CAP works (subsidies are paid per hectare, and based on specific fields contractually consecrated to growing a specific crop) is a thinly-disguised form of pressure towards rapidly-increasing farm size; land prices have risen as farmers borrow to attempt to attain "critical mass". Smaller farmers leaving for retirement are not replaced, their farms are gobbled up by bigger ones. If the CAP subsidized, neither the crops nor the land, but the farmer, there might be a change in the right direction.
Otherwise, I'm all for what you suggest. I was all for it thirty years ago. I just didn't get my 40 acres and a mule!
If I can find some time I will look for a link.
What this brings to my mind to wonder, combined with another post below, is what kind of influence do the European people have in influencing decisions about CAP? What could be done to move things in the small farmer direction? (Perhaps this is a future diary!!)
Please write more on this subject, De Anander! "Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia
