Where There Isn't a Food Crisis

Where There Isn't a Food Crisis

zogger

Mon, 05 May 2008 20:03:09 PDT

Science

We read a lot about the recent crisis in food prices and availability, but one developing world nation isn't suffering as bad right now, the nation of Malawi in Africa. Although they have some problems, the main basic problem of growing enough food to feed their populations has been fixed, and now they have surplus to export-and that is because they first made sure they had their Agricultural priorities in the correct order.
.."Malawi's donors refused to fund the programme, arguing that subsidising farmers would not bring the desired results. They were wrong. Malawi needs about 2.2 million tonnes of maize a year to feed itself and from a low of 1.2 million tonnes in 2005, national maize production rose to 3.2 million tonnes in 2007, according to the Ministry of Agriculture."

ed.z.: Glad to see it is still going OK with those people. First things first, make sure you really can "feed your people", *then* putz around in the international markets in your spare time with any "spare" commodities you might have. Your (anyone "you" your) national food supply should never be left to just pure global speculation, that just leads to surprises and sudden grocery sticker shock.

Where There Isn't a Food Crisis

Bhima

Tue, 06 May 2008 01:42:30 PDT

This is a reoccurring theme. Someone in Washington D.C. or London cooks up this globalist scheme and then withholds funding to developing nations who doubt them. I’m not saying they are always wrong but I’ve personally seen these sorts plans fail catastrophically in New Guinea, Peru, and a few places in Africa. Intelligence is not exclusive to D.C. or to London… there are a lot of very smart people lurking around the world. Also I think sometimes we get confused about just who interest we should be acting in.

It's a shame the western donor nations don’t encourage self reliance rather than global market participation first… because seriously if you are living in some place where no agriculture technology known to man can allow you grow sufficient crops to support your community and your community doesn’t already have the technology and the money to buy that food on the open market *you need to move*. With the decline of arable land and the rapid increase of population this is bound to make a lot of people unhappy.

Where There Isn't a Food Crisis

AB3A	Tue, 06 May 2008 04:09:35 PDT

There is another term for mass population migrations: War. I can't think of a single time in history when migration didn't result in mass casualties and conflict.

Another solution to your problem is to find an agricultural technology that DOES support you. This isn't just about land itself. It's about the business of food. It's about the technologies of producing nutritious food that will sustain and nourish. The government of Malawi already had a viable crop that could scale. What they lacked were the tools to do it. I think the lesson here is that you need to develop the right tools, the right crops, and the right economic policies to make this worth doing.

One of the interesting things they discovered in Greenland, was evidence of old Norse settlements. These settlements apparently died out because the people there refused to adapt to local hunting practices when the weather conditions changed.

People need to learn to adapt, rather than give up so easily as you suggest.

Where There Isn't a Food Crisis

Bhima

Tue, 06 May 2008 09:26:55 PDT

I absolutely agree with everything you say here... that you think I suggest people should give up easily is most likely due to my poor ability to write entirely in English. I frequently write in this god awful random patois and then translate words into English after I've completed writing my post... I find it helps me keep my train of thought but it also causes other problems (like faulty negations).

My point was sort of two fold... Anglo / European agriculture methods do not always yield the most satisfactory results in places that are unlike where they were developed. And: What is best for some community in some far flung corner of the world isn't always what some banker or NGO volunteer cooks up. I have been personally guilty of this.. and thus I make it habit of trying learn as much as I can from the people that I visit, rather than running my mouth constantly.

When I said move, I really meant it. It comes from touring some really hopelessly disadvantaged villages in impossible situations and from the ideas expressed by Stewart Brand in a TED presentation that recently popped up on my podcast list.

Jared Diamond has an absolutely fascinating treatment of the Greenland settlements in his book "Kollaps". I can't recommend this book enough, it's fascinating.

Where There Isn't a Food Crisis

President4242

Tue, 06 May 2008 10:38:38 PDT

I've been saying this for years, which is why I ultimately support a protectionist, guild/tribe based system.

We're only just now in Oregon figuring out that the Kalapuya, despite their lack of using such technologies as clothing, were quite right in their low labor farming techniques & localized trading structures- and that forcing them into high labor, high production techniques is what killed off several of the tribes (well, that and the malaria epidemic that came from trade with the French).

Where There Isn't a Food Crisis

Uncle Entity

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:30:48 PDT

What you simply gloss over probably had a much bigger impact than new farming techniques.

Losing 90% of a population usually means that almost all of the cultural history is gone so the survivors would be just as lost as the kids in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome trying to piece together a world view with very little knowledge of what happened before.

It is also highly doubtful that their farming system could scale to serve a population as large as is currently in Oregon or they would have had a larger population before the European Plague Dogs showed up to teach them scientific farming.

So, theoretically, the Willamette Valley has a natural carrying capacity of 20k humans under tribal farming so how do you propose to reduce the level to that standard?

Where There Isn't a Food Crisis

President4242

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:23:37 PDT

We could start by not allowing new immigrants in. But we can also increase that carrying capacity using modern farming techniques and traditional foods. Elk and Deer take a lot less land for grazing than beef. Creating new Costal Range spawning grounds could give us a resurgance of fish. Blowing up the Sandy River Dam means a return of large smelt runs. Sunflowers and Camas, if properly cultivated, wouldn't need the extra fertilizer and redirected water supplies. Returning yearly flooding to the Lake Labish area could give us a bumper crop of rice & onions. That sort of thing.

You're right, we'd have to reduce the population, probably down to the million or so that were in all of Oregon in the 1890s. But by ending immigration, native gonie families are far below replacement rate already, so natural attrition would do the rest.

Where There Isn't a Food Crisis

Uncle Entity

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:47:09 PDT

So restrict new people, throw up trade barriers and hope for the best then?

How you guys set on all the other natural resources that a trade barrier war would make scarce? Or funds to pay for infrastructure upkeep that Oregon can't afford without federal tax dollars?

Not that I'm against the states being self-supporting but the commerce clause was put in the constitution to keep states from starting trade wars with each other and not, contrary to popular opinion, for congress to micro manage the lives of 'We the People'.

Where There Isn't a Food Crisis

President4242

Wed, 07 May 2008 08:55:53 PDT

How you guys set on all the other natural resources that a trade barrier war would make scarce?

Pretty darn good, now that we can grow citrus in the Rogue Valley. Of course, there's a difference between goods you WANT and goods you NEED- but we're a net exporter of food and grass seed and if we trade our surplus for other people's surplus, instead of relying on the myth of comparitive advantage, we'd do very well.

Or funds to pay for infrastructure upkeep that Oregon can't afford without federal tax dollars?

Internalize our money supply, start printing our own money, raise corporate taxes to a *reasonable* level (instead of the $10 a year they've been at since 1932) and raise the barrier against the IRS as well, transfering those tax funds that would have left the state to the ORS, we'd do very well.

Not that I'm against the states being self-supporting but the commerce clause was put in the constitution to keep states from starting trade wars with each other and not, contrary to popular opinion, for congress to micro manage the lives of 'We the People'.

And yet the cities of Seattle, Washington DC, Los Angles, and New York went ahead and started a trade war against us anyway, sucking up the funds into their horrifically inefficient banking and trade systems that we need to survive. The Constitution is a broken contract and has been for a century now. Foreign influence in local politics is rife- we can't even get a gonie elected to CITY office anymore, foreign influence in our campaign funding and the influx of immigrants into Oregon has handed over control of our lives to out-of-state special interests. We ARE being micromanaged, and the commerce clause is a part of the cause.

Tags: malawi, food, agriculture, business, economy, markets, trading