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Learning From Past Mistakes
Many in the highly
technological Western world
have forgotten one of the
most essential keys to
national economic and
social success.
Orville
L.
Freeman,
chairman of Business
lnternational Corporation
and former U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture, stated it well: ·
"No country, with the
exception of a few
city-states, has ever
prospered and built a sound
economy without a salid
agricultura! base."
Soviet Example
Today the leaders of the '
Soviet Union realize the
nation is a crippled world
power because its
agriculture is inefficient and
wasteful. Bad weather is not
the sole cause of the Soviet
Union's repeated crop
failures.
Russia several decades
ago was a majar food
exporter. But its leaders
chose to devote the nation's
best money' and brainpower
into the development of
industrial and military might
instead of efficient
agriculture. Now it can't
adequately leed its own
people.
Many Soviet farmers lack
understanding in the care of
machinery and crops. They
lack proper roads, quality
equipment, storage and
repair facilities. Many crops
rot in the fields or go to
waste during transport. Like
many poor developing
nations, the Soviets now
must spend massive
amounts of foreign
exchange on food it could
be growing and preserving
itself, if it were more
agriculturally efficient.
Causes of Third World
Poverty
A significan! cause of the
April 1983
tood crisis in developing
nations has tseen, of course,
the population explosion
since World War 11. Befare
1940, the less-developed
areas of Asia, Africa and
Latín America were net
exporters of wheat , rice and
maize or corn to more
industrial nations. Alter
World War 11 soaring
population growth reversed
that flow.
In the post-World War 11
era, government leaders of
many developing nations
didn't come from agricultura!
backgrounds but instead
from urban or military
backgrounds. They made a
fatal mistake. They
evaluated socioeconomic
progress in terms of the
industrial West. They hoped
industrial development would
enable them to rapidly
duplicate the wealth of
developed countries. They
rushed to build showcase
projects- big dams,
industrial plants and urban
business projects. All this
diverted development from
where it was most needed,
in rural areas where most
people lived.
Often whatever agriculture
the governments
emphasized centered on the
development of a few major
cash crops for export. Why?
To earn foreign exchange to
support industrial, military
and urban development
projects. These projects
benefited only a minority of
citizens- usually urban
populations, the
government's major
supporting constituency.
Any nation involved in
high industrial-urban
development that cannot yet
grow and leed its own
people a diet of staple
foods, undercuts its growth
and long-term success. For
two importan! reasons:
Whenever insufficient
staple tood production
exists within a country. food
must be imported at great
purchasing and shipping
costs. Such costs compete
for and deplete financia!
reserves needed for other
development projects.
The consequently reduced
purchasing power in vast.
poor rural populations does
not enable the masses to
afford the products of their
own fledgling industry. Often
these industrial goods must
be exported and subsidized
(draining more development
funds) because they tace stitf
competition from more
efficient producers elsewhere.
And income from the few
critica! cash crops is often
unpredictable because of
rapidly changing world
demand and prices.
Eventually rural lands of
many developing nations
may not support the
pressures of growing
population. Add to this bad
weather, indebtedness and
warfare. Poor, dispirited and
land-disenfranchised masses
then flee to urban areas in
hopes of finding food and
employment. lnstead what
many find is further poverty,
hunger and a new kind of
squalor.
Once rural masses flee
their lands it creates a
further drain on their nation's
scant resources.
Governments must then use
financia! reserves from cash
crops sold in export to
import
staple foods for ever
increasing
non-food-producing urban
hordes. All such expenses
could be avoided with
prosperous agriculture.
Workable Solutions
lmproved agricultura!
development and support
services in farming areas
would provide the stable
employment and security
rural masses seek and
need. lt would give them a
high sense of purpose and
satisfaction by providing
food and produce of many
kinds for themselves and
others. And successful
farmers would find much
greater happiness in their
own familiar surroundings
and culture.
Making the rural areas of
developing nations more
prosperous, through the
growing and selling of
surplus food to urban areas
or for export, opens up new
economic development and
markets for the whole
f)ation. As farmers increase
income through selling their
agricultura! surplus, they
become buyers of more
goods and services.
Prosperous farmers can also
be a
primary
source of
investment in their nation's
industrial development.
Hunger in food-short
nations cannot be eliminated
without first overcoming
poverty in rural areas. And
poverty in these areas
cannot be eliminated without
successful rural and
agricultura! development!
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