Uhh, the Malthusians.
Professor: “Hey, let’s all write a paper disproving Malthus’ theory!”
Me: “Let’s not. Malthus was right.”
OK, so I didn’t actually say that, but it was what I was thinking the whole time I was writing. It helped that I found a way to beat up on the eco-socialists a bit.
The Assignment: The Green Revolution
The green revolution has been credited with dramatically increasing harvests in many parts of the world. Where was the green revolution most active, where was it not, and how has its success been measured?
The green revolution involved a transfer of commercial agricultural methods to replace subsistence ones. Is this a fair statement? Give some examples.
Each of the components of the revolution—irrigation, hybrid seeds, mechanization, chemicals and large-scale farming—has had unintended side effects and some have caused severe problems of their own. Enumerate as many of these problems as possible.
The revolution generally involved transfer of knowledge, seed, and equipment from developed to less developed areas rather than the other way around. What about food or farming might the developed world learn from the poorer countries? Please speculate.
Lab #8
During World War II, Mexico launched an initiative to become more agriculturally and economically self-sufficient. To do so, it teamed up with American scientists and charitable foundations to research and implement programs expanding the ability of its farmers to grow more and different kinds of wheat. Using large scale irrigation and mechanization, Mexico was able to feed all of its people within the span of just over a decade.
Fifteen years later, the program was tried in the Punjab region of India. This time, rice was deemed to be the appropriate crop to work with. Using the irrigation and mechanization techniques perfected in Mexico, combined with the use of a genetically modified variety of the traditional rice plant, the rice yields had multiplied ten-fold within seven years.
The program’s originator, Norman Borlaug, became the leading agricultural scientist of his day because of the accomplishments in Mexico and India. Though his only interest seemed to be in trying to beat the theories of Thomas Robert Malthus by having the world grow more food than the population needed.
However, when his programs were attempted on the African continent, major difficulties were encountered. Water supplies for irrigation and poor soil conditions, as well as problems getting the seed and equipment to the farmers, mostly because of a lack of security and wide-spread corruption.
On top of all of those problems, in the already developed nations, some of the more militant ecological groups used the international court system and heavy-handed lobbying efforts to stop NGO’s that help citizens of the third world to be self-sufficient because of the ecological groups’ fascination with primitive farming methods.
These problems continue to this day, even with aid from international governmental organizations and military interventions. They have stopped most of the nations in Africa from being able to feed themselves.
As with any new technology, one solution creates at least one problem, if not more.
Irrigation means that water which was supposed to go one place now goes to another. Water shortages and/or water pollution from fertilizers and pesticides is common in heavily irrigated areas. Mechanization means that it takes fewer people to grow a set amount of food, which leads to unemployment and is followed by poverty for that segment of the population. Also, the use of genetically modified crops could mean that some native plants will become rare or even extinct.
As the third world industrializes and catches up with Europe and the U.S., their nation’s wealth and quality of live also grows. As lessons learned from first world nations, we must not forget some of the ideas and habits that kept developing nations afloat during their hard times. One of the larger problems now facing Europeans and American also concerns our food supply.
America grows such a large quantity of food and we over-eat. Add to that our technological advances for day-in/day-out living, giving us rather sedentary lifestyles. These two factors combine to make a large percentage of our population overweight or obese. If there is anything to be learned from those whom agricultural technology has helped it might be to eat a little bit less.
Grade; 100%
Yeah, the ending sucked. But the topic was crap, so I’m sure no one really noticed. I took the grade and moved on.
Fun story.
When USAID was running around SE Asia in the 1950s, trying to bring modern agricultural practices to the locals, they discovered an interesting phenomenon.
1. Countless generations of subsistence farmers who had major issues with spoilage of surpluses due to the climate knew better than to grow much more than could be used.
2. Surpluses of most ag output could not be traded at a financial gain due to the transport issues.
3. Political systems in which locals were only taxed on surpluses meant that generating a surplus also meant that they were simply creating a situation in which they would be taxed more than usual for a net loss.
Result – farmers, when given access to subsidized chemical fertilizers that would double the output of their farms, usually scaled back their effort accordingly.
There were plenty of innovations that they did embrace – make no mistake – but it’s an interesting phenomenon that has yet to be overcome in many regions. That said, in that region where transport is better and the political system encourages production with non-prohibitive taxation systems, modern ag flourishes.
What Kyle said. Also in India when I was a kid there ’66-’69 the local Indian States, having a bit more independence than United Stadians, all had different inter-state commerce laws with Keynesian tariffs between them AND anti-smuggling policing laws totally f*ing up the Market, so a rice-producer might not even be able to sell material without losses from tarifs or the more traditional pay-out of bribes.
It produced some excitement now and then: We were on a Train going up to Calcutta from our rice-producing state into West Bengal (Communist-run and not a net-producer) once time and it was stopped by police while they searched the train for a smuggler. There was a lot of shouting and banging on compartment doors (that we did NOT open) and then a well-dressed (western style) man leaps from the train and kinda stumbles down the high embankment into a rice paddy and takes off running, bumbling across it, getting his nice sandals muddy. A plainclothes cop runs after him and stops short, shots were fired ineffectively (in the air – drama was the intent, not harm) – the guy got away, but I guess they knew who he was.
They (India) really had to re-shape and break-down network of tariffs and inter-state regulations, including the traditional, institutional, and long-standing sub-Market bribery mechanisms that profited so many before they could really move ahead with transportation and distribution efficiencies, help people and fight Famine.