> Jim started with his ridiculous statement about 1 farmer feeds .....
> Jim heartfield responded
> You might want to ridicule it, but it's not ridiculous, It's not mine,
> either, its Lester Brown's, a champion of environmentalism.
>
Lester Brown first wrote that when he was with the US Department of Ag. in the 60s, as the chief promoter for the Green Revolution.
> Jim wrote:
>
> Productivity is hard to measure? I don't think so. We have a number of
> measures, which approximate it, such as increased yields. The most
> obvious is that since the high point of 732 million hectares farmed for
> grain globally in 1981, there has been a systematic retiring of land
> from production to avoid surplus capacity. Today grain farming covers
> just 690 million hectares.
Productivity cannot be mentioned in 2 dimensions that way. Mexican farmers cannot compete with US corn farmers because the Mexicans have been chased onto eroding hillsides, while good land in much of Central America has been going for grazing Big Macs. If you want to increase productivity, give those farmers access to good land.
> The key resource squandered, of course, was human labour - but hey, life
> is cheap, why not just return to the truck system!
>
Cute, but it ignores the squandering of other resources, soil, water, ....
>Have you read about the phisteria resulting from the efficient, modern hog farms?
> No but something tells me that it is hysteria.
>
The above was very clever again. The Scientific American recently had a good study of this hysteria.
> Yes, indeed there is a high rate of farm bankruptcy. That's pretty much
> what one would expect when small farmers cannot make the investments to
> keep up with the productivity of agri-business. I would argue for a
> scheme of re-training and relocation. Small farmers are very good at
> wasting that most important of resources, human beings.
Wow. Lou Proyect might say something about fox hunting at this point, but I will resist.
Many of the small farmers are extremely efficient ... Sorry. I have to go. I will try to get back later.
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu