Why India needs transgenic crops

[Brad DeLong]

>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

No. You see, a "productive" economy is one in which 60% of the 
population grows food to feed everyone, and only 40% of the labor 
force is available to make other stuff. That keeps demand for SUVs 
down, you see...

Brad DeLong