> Application of fertilisers and pesticides sets Americans free to do
> other things, while less developed nations have a greater proportion
> of people tied to the land. It all depends on what you think is
> important. If people are important, then increased productivity is a
> better thing that increased yield. (In any event, new techniques in
> agriculture are also increasing yield, leading to more land being
> freed from agricultural use.)
There has been fertiliser since the beginning of agriculture...and there are other ways to control pests. Monoculture is a pest magnet. But the next question is, once folks get off the farm, what are they "free" to do?
Starve? Work in a Nike factory? Prostitute themselves?
Not to say that there aren't good options too. But in our kind of "market/capitalist" economy, whatever happens in the long run, these seem to be the short-term choices.
There are certain assumptions that this discussion seems to take for granted:
0. One either does mental work or manual work 1. mental work is better than manual work 2. agricultural work is the worst work in the world 3. it is always a good thing to decrease the amount of work (though clearly in our economy, the total amount of work never goes down)
I disagree with all of these, ....but so much of our arguments follow from this, that it would be well to talk about it.
And thank you Gar for your discussion of the no-till model; it's always good to understand the fuller picture.
Joanna