>It's a mistake to romanticize peasant life. But in focusing on the
>labor-intensive aspect of the natural methods Monbiot favors to increase
>agricultural productivity, you ignore the positive aspect of the
>trade-off he posits, viz: "[These methods] require lots of labour, *no
>debt,* and *no help from predatory corporations.*" Not being in thrall
>to debt and predatory corporations can outweigh the burden of manual
>labor.
Hey, watch those forced binaries! It's not like the only imaginable choices are between stoop labor and servitude to Monsanto. I know it's hard to imagine now, but a socialized science could use technology to make human life better while sparing nature. If we can't even imagine that option, we're in deep trouble.
Doug