Doug Henwood wrote:
> Well no shit. Small farmers are driven by the profit motive too.
right. But the problem isn't the profit motive (see below).
> More productive in the sense that the same cultivated acreage now
> feeds more people than it used to. India's pop is up 145% since 1960.
a very common critique of "modern" crops (including the now-passé "Green Revolution" crops) is that their introduction involves increasing economies of scale and other advantages of bigness, along with the replacement of farm labor with machinery of various sorts. This means it's quite possible that a larger percentage of the rural population can't afford the new crops, even if the total production rises.
-- Jim Devine "living a life of quiet desperation -- but always with style!"