Land Degradation: Impact of Farmers

[Keith R]

"The Challenge Land Degradation Poses for the DR"

[Chris]

I was looking at this same material just yesterday and it makes grim reading all across the world. Cutting down vast swaths of forests is leaving us with too little rain in many areas and when the rain comes down, it washes away every piece of topsoil that there is, because this is so hard baked and dry, without having any sustenance to give to anything planted in it. You can see this visibly if you walk into the landscape on the Northern side Keith - that is if you are able to distinguish it. I remember back as a child in Africa all the farmers in an area coming together and specifically filling in erosion gullies and planting trees to help the cycle and soil recover. We've known about this for a long time bu we (humankind) persisted in following policies that consistently impoverished soil quality even more.

Kottke in that underground classic, The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and The Seed of the Future said: "Because civilized people do not know what they are, they talk politics, religion and science and pursue material wealth while the basis of their life on earth, the soil, slips away beneath their feet."

So now we have oil scarcity (peak oil?) and climate change and food sources severely stressed in our quest to keep on motoring and madman as leaders most of the time . Monbiot was recently asking plaintively: "Peasant farmers offer the best chance of feeding the world. So why do we treat them with contempt?" The premise is that studies show that small farms are consistently way more productive than large comoditized farming conglomerates - different than what we all thought these past years, excepting that our fearless leaders put the kibush on small farms with trade policies and subsidy policies and food control policies and now the chickens are really coming home to roost . (farming pun!)

[cobraboy]

Originally Posted by Chris

The premise is that studies show that small farms are consistently way more productive than large comoditized farming conglomerates - different than what we all thought these past years

How is this so? Statistically, modern farms, the "corporate" farms, are significantly more productive on just about every statictical measure?

[Chip]

Originally Posted by Chris

Kottke in that underground classic, The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and The Seed of the Future said: "Because civilized people do not know what they are, they talk politics, religion and science and pursue material wealth while the basis of their life on earth, the soil, slips away beneath their feet."

(farming pun!)

Growing up in the 70's and images of of native Americans weeping over the state of our country, I was very conscious about the environment, and for that matter decided to study agricultural engineering.

The above statement seems to present the idea that civilization through advancement will actually be the cause of the failure of the earth to sustain us. However, experiance and history teach us something different altogether.

I have the feeling you feel that somehow there will be a grass roots movement from the bottom up that will somehow transcend national boundaries, languages and politics, but I feel you know that our long and cluttered history would not support that. Also, any first hand experience with people of lesser education means would immediately call into question the veracity of the likelihood of the scenario becoming reality. The fact is ignorance and lack of education are the main causes of that we continue to abuse our environment, ie people simply don't know what they do can hurt them in the end.

It may seem that big business and greedy governements are the root cause, but then again, vist any third world country and view the ground and watershed contamination not to mention the smog caused by millions of poor running hc motors, and it becomes clear that abuse of the environment is not limited to any societal or monetary class of individuals.

Therefore, unfortunate as it may be, change has to come from above by the leaders of the community, and inewvitably this involves politics.

Don't give up hope though. All one has to do is look at the changes in the health of the environment and attitudes that happened in some 35 some odd years in the US to know that it is possible.

[Chris]

Chip. no, not a grassroots movement but certainly I don't expect that our fearless leaders will do anything but feather their own nests however possible. There is kind of a land movement happening though, the one where food is becoming really expensive and farmers are all of a sudden the flavor of the day and we're seeing more types of large scale land fertility studies than the one Keith quoted in this blog entry. The penny is beginning to drop in the main stream consciousness that large scale deforestation leads to large scale poverty of soil.

Originally Posted by cobraboy

How is this so? Statistically, modern farms, the "corporate" farms, are significantly more productive on just about every statictical measure?

The link that I gave explains the premise in four paragraphs (easy to read) and in 4 credible sources cited in the footnotes of the article. The main economist, Amartya Sen, is a Nobel winner. Your comment, while widely accepted, seems to be no longer accurate

[cobraboy]

Originally Posted by Chris

The link that I gave explains the premise in four paragraphs (easy to read) and in 4 credible sources cited in the footnotes of the article. The main economist, Amartya Sen, is a Nobel winner. Your comment, while widely accepted, seems to be no longer accurate

Algore won a Nobel*, too, and we see how that turned out.

There are credible economists who argue strongly against Sen's "theories" (which are really liberal/socialist political ideologies wrapped in "economists" clothing) as being very incorrect. In fact, there are credible economists who claim that Sen's policies were specificall in support of the prevailing Bengal gubmint, and not only did not reduce famine, but were a root cause of them. Additionally, credible economists and historians have accused Sen of intentionally manipulating data to achieve the conclusions he wanted (where have I heard the Left harp about THAT one before...).

I realize you're a "globalist", Chris, and fall in step with those who embrace pro-globalist agendas (like the UN; they've done a fine job of fixing world problems, huh?). I have no problem with that, as everyone is entitled to their opinion. But simply citing an article that you ~want~ to believe is so, doesn't make it so.

I read the Monbiot's agruments and the annotations and footnotes, almost all of which come from sources of "Fellow Travelers" in the Global Socialist Movement (BTW-did you know the moniker for the whacky Left, "Moonbat", is a parody of his name. Someone added "Barking" because of his style of speech. And did you know that just recently he tried a "Citizens Arrest" of John Bolton, before being toos out on his ass by security folks in GB? A classy move, huh?). I would hardly consider anything Moinbat writes as either scholarly or unbiased. Unless of course, I WANT to believe because we "in the struggle together".

One "study" which he (and, therefore you) use in his "analysis" is that small farms IN TURKEY are like 10 or 20 times MORE PRODUCTIVE than large farms. Maybe in Turkey. But not in the First World. Not even in the DR. There are a bazillion studies that show there is clearly economies of scale with incredible increases in per-acre productivity in larger farms. They may not be as cute and warm-and-fuzzy, but they produce much more real food that the old "family farm" did. Again, maybe not in the countries that Unal studied, but in the rest of the world that produces massive amount of crops, you're gonna be hard pressed to prove it.

Before you go off on me (again), I'd ask that just for once that y'all make even the slightest mild effort to either offer a more balanced view of a topic, even if seen as weak efforts. Or at least not crucify and demean those here who do in the spirit of being fair and balanced, and offer countervailing opinions that do not agree with your fundamental political World View.





*Do you know who was up for the Nobel Peace Prize nomination with Algore? Irena Sendler. She lost. Read about her, and then tell me who should have won, her or a former politician with a discredited PPS slide show: Irena Sendler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by WiKi

She organized the smuggling of Jewish children from the Ghetto, carrying them out in boxes, suitcases and trolleys.[2] Under the pretext of conducting inspections of sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, Sendler visited the ghetto and smuggled out babies and small children in ambulances and trams, sometimes disguising them as packages.[5] She also used the old courthouse of the edge of the Warsaw Ghetto (still standing) as one of the main routes of smuggling children out. The children were placed with Polish families, the Warsaw orphanage of the Sisters of the Family of Mary or Roman Catholic convents such as the Sisters Little Servants of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mary[6] at Turkowice and Chotomów. Some were smuggled to priests in parish rectories where they could be further hidden. She hid lists of their names in jars, in order to keep track of their original and new identities. Żegota assured the children that, when the war was over, they must be returned to Jewish relatives.[1]

In 1943, Sendler was arrested by the Gestapo, severely tortured, and sentenced to death. Żegota saved her by bribing German guards on the way to her execution. She was left in the woods, unconscious and with broken arms and legs.[2] She was listed on public bulletin boards as among those executed. For the remainder of the war, she lived in hiding, but continued her work for the Jewish children. After the war, she dug up the jars containing the children's identities and began an attempt to find the children and return them to living parents. However, almost all the children's parents had died at the Treblinka extermination camp.

Just sayin'...

[Keith R]

Okay, if you kids want to get into a fight about the environmental impact of small vs. corporate farms, now you have your own thread in which to do so.

Keith R
Environment Forum moderator

[Chip]

Originally Posted by Keith R

Okay, if you kids want to get into a fight about the environmental impact of small vs. corporate farms, now you have your own thread in which to do so.

Keith R
Environment Forum moderator

Fighting! We just having fun while solving the worlds problems!

[Keith R]

Originally Posted by Chip

Fighting! We just having fun while solving the worlds problems!

Call it what you will, here's the place, not the thread announcing new GT blog entries.

Thanks.

[cobraboy]

Originally Posted by Chip

Fighting! We just having fun while solving the worlds problems!

Or causing them...