Second, moving to industrialized ag. shifts people to producing ag inputs, which makes them indirect agricultural producers. They should also be taken into account.
Third, the cost of providing an equivalent standard of living to the indirect ag. producers is higher than the direct ag. producers.
Fourth, because of the higher population density, such countries run more risk from the mistakes of chemical ag. Not just Bhopal type disasters, but the salinization of the land.
Finally, Ulhas asked about organic ag. Yes, it can have equally high yields. Much of the increase in yields from the Green Rev. merely reflected the fact that the state gave farmers irrigation.
On Tue, Jul 30, 2002 at 11:01:12AM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Michael Perelman wrote:
>
> >In response to your sheesh, Brad. You are correct that the US would be
> >expected to have low yield, high output per labor conditions. The not
> >particularly productive would imply several aspects; You could just as
> >easily say that traditional Asian -- high yield, low output per hour is
> >productive. In addition, the externalities from US ag are horrendous. I
> >wrote a book about this in 1977 and it pretty much holds true today.
>
> I really don't get this. Why is a society where, say, half the labor
> force is directly engage in agriculture more productive than one
> where something like 1% of the labor force is? This doesn't comport
> with any definition of productivity I'm familiar with.
>
> Doug
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu