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Also, from the point of view of income inequality, let's remember that the rioters in Mexico and Egypt tend to be urban dwellers - who are wealthier than land workers. The ones going hungry are the food producers. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
If there is nobody left knowing how to cultivate them, there is going to be a problem...
I pointed this out the other day in Bruce McF's latest Arc of the Sun diary. And that current prices might persuade peasant farmers to stay on the land - though we have to stop bringing world prices down with our subsidised exports (we = EU & US).
OTOH, we shouldn't give up farming. There's a free-trade notion that says we don't need agriculture any more (like we didn't need industry?), and we should just import from the cheapest bidder (comparative advantage). Which, practically, means buying from Cairns Group and emerging agri-countries that run wide-scale production of dubious sustainability. And (Doha Round) from plantation-type farming that should be encouraged (invested in by capitalists) in poorer countries, where lucky peasant farmers will be able to get wage-slave jobs and we will be told they have been raised out of poverty.
My view is we should aim at self-sufficiency, as far as possible, for all. Free-traders' schemes take no account of ecology or of human society, do not cost these into their utilitarian calculations, forget past agronomic experience of virgin deforested soils exhausted by colonial cropping (North American forest, C17 - C19?). Rather than go for plantation monocultures, we should encourage sustainable, smart small farming providing basic food plus cash crops for sale on regional and national markets. Food will be more expensive? Good. Then it will pay farmers to stay on the land, it will maintain and enrich social structures that are otherwise doomed by uprooting and flight to the cities. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
Another point made by Mazoyer is that large-scale farms are actually quite inefficient ; that economies of scale happen only up to 5-7 workers per production units, and that after that you meet diseconomies of scale.
Also, the amount of food GDP going to the producer will rise again : even France or the US spend ~15% of GDP on food, but most of that goes to Agrobusiness and supermarket nowadays, not farmers. i.e. food prices for the end buyer need not rise that much. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
That's interesting... So what is the optimal farm size, in terms of people and land area? When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
Land area OTOH is very variable, depending on the type of production, the amount of capital available... A shepherd with a dog can look over a much larger herd than without...
The insight is that agriculture is very easy to decentralise, which is why economies of scale don't apply. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
At least, not in this century ... maybe we can get an elsewhere to import some high value things from down the track, if we don't screw the pooch too badly in this coming century. Utsukushii kereba sore de ii
thread at FS
thread at MoA
FTR I disagree with many of linca's implicit and explicit claims and assumptions about the so-called "Green Revolution" -- but more on this later, just flying a protest flag for now :-) The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
Their point about the Green Revolution (which is further developed in their book, A History of World Agriculture) is not about extending it to small farmers in the third world, and with it extending agribusiness's hold on them ; but rather, use some of the scientific techniques and scientists developed along the Green Revolution, reorient them to a closer collaboration and study of existing "traditional" agricultural practice, and participation in the development of techniques and varieties geared towards the economic and agricultural needs of those peasants.
That is, use the science of the Green Revolution to develop a productive rustic manioc rather than wheat or maize needing a lot of irrigation and chemicals. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Rice traders hit by panic as prices surge Rice prices hit the $1,000-a-tonne level for the first time on Thursday as panicking importers scrambled to secure supplies, exacerbating the tightness already provoked by export restrictions in Vietnam, India, Egypt, China and Cambodia. The jump came as the Philippines, the largest rice importer, failed for the fourth time to secure as much rice as it wanted. The unsuccessful tender followed Bangladesh's inability to buy any rice at all this week. Traders and analysts warned that rice demand was escalating in spite of prices rising to three times the level of a year ago as countries try to build up stocks.
Rice prices hit the $1,000-a-tonne level for the first time on Thursday as panicking importers scrambled to secure supplies, exacerbating the tightness already provoked by export restrictions in Vietnam, India, Egypt, China and Cambodia.
The jump came as the Philippines, the largest rice importer, failed for the fourth time to secure as much rice as it wanted.
The unsuccessful tender followed Bangladesh's inability to buy any rice at all this week.
Traders and analysts warned that rice demand was escalating in spite of prices rising to three times the level of a year ago as countries try to build up stocks.
Your long term point is well made, but the short term disruptions are huge, and very dangerous... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
But corrupt, indebted, "reformed" governments have been unable to undertake such preventative measures and are now fighting for the last grain of rice available... Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
you are the media you consume.
-Energy : contrast gas and men's muscles. If they could get some animal traction, it'd be nice.
-Ways to renew the fertility of the ground : your uncle uses various kind of chemicals (not all of which necessarily pollute), whereas the African farmer is probably using his excrement, or burnt wood in the southern parts of the continent where they are still doing Slash and Burn. But animal manure would increase productivity of the land, and works nicely with the preceding factor.
-Tools : Without energy, the plow is useless... And without capital, many tools are not accessible to the African farmer.
-Cultivated Varieties : one of the problem of developing world is that much work was put into selecting varieties adapted for industrial agriculture, of wheat, corn and rice, or for exportation, like coffee. Not as much work was put into variety selection of plants used in the South, such as manioc, millet, sweet potato, bananas, or to adapt varieties of grain for the techniques of non-industrial agriculture...
-Water : small parcel mean the investment in agriculture has to be done collectively ; and there are problems with state stability in Africa... The State practically appeared when irrigation became a necessity, in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, or even with the Inca. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
