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Thanks asdf.I agree that urban gardening is fun and useful, in particular if "one can use all sorts of high-tech methods for irrigation and for controlling water loss, because the incremental cost of extra equipment is low."  However, the basic thoughts of my diary on small-scale family gardening started with an analyis of the hunger situation of the poor rural and urban people in the drylands.  For these people gardening does not have to be "fun".  It is a bare necessity !  Helping them to produce daily fresh food is more than just doing a noble thing.

You are completely right about the demographic constraints : one of the main problems is population growth.  We all know how difficult it is to change that pattern.  Even if "Improving farming efficiency just allows a few million more people to survive. Malthus and all that...", we should never hesitate to give those few millions a chance for a better life, be it only with a small family garden.  They have the right to become a bit more happy, don't you think ?

Prof. Dr. Willem Van Cotthem Beeweg 36 - B 9080 Zaffelare (Belgium)

by willem vancotthem (willem.vancotthem@gmail.com) on Tue May 6th, 2008 at 04:18:11 AM EST
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Well sure, as a fellow human, one wants to help improve the lot of others. But I wonder whether there should be some sort of an arrangement along the lines of "Here's some help on how to run a subsistence farm, but alongside is some help on how not to have more babies."

There is a persistent assumption that by some sort of change to the political or economic or technical environment, the earth will be able to sustain more and more people. We should try to change that assumption, and work to get the global population down by quite a bit. Or, we can wait until Mother Nature does it for us by disease or famine or war...

by asdf on Wed May 7th, 2008 at 08:28:10 AM EST
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