Basic HTML Version
====-----------====-~-----=======-------=====~intnAh
Politics
of
DeSperatlon
(CDnrmu<dfrom
J"'V 9)
ply
does
not have the rnassove surpluses
available for widespread aod as ot has
had in years past.
In view of an of these factors - and
should they worsen stin funher - tho
only way out for the developing .coun·
tries of Asia and Africa. concludod Dr.
Steinhan. ma,y be the ..politics of des·
peration...
Within this frarnowork there could be
sorne bending together of producers of
proma()l rnetals. or perhaps othor com·
modities. in an attempt to duplicate
OPEC's suecess in extract•ng more
money for their resources Strateg•c
rnetals such as copper. ton. chrornourn.
and beuxite - the supphes of whoch
are largefy found on the developmg na·
toons - could very lokely be mvolved in
futuro canal actoon
Another scenano frequently proposed
is that of the hungry nations - somo of
which, like India, are comong into pos·
session of nuclear secrets - engaging
in
noclear blackmsil
to extort dorely
heeded food, especoally if lndustrlalized
nations adopt the ..ethics of the lile·
boat" as is being urged in somo quar·
ters. This refers to the proposal that the
Unoted States and other grain-ric:h na·
tions stop " wast1ng" precioos
food
on
the " hopelessly" poor and over–
populated countnes and concentnue on
those who can be helped.
The analogy of a lofeboat os ohen
used: lf the boat os hlled too full, ot
Wlll
sink and the lives of
11/1
won be lost, so ot
is bener to bar soma from the
boa1
so
the rest might Sui'Vive Jn other words,
give food onfy to those natoons in whoch
famine
js
not
"inevttable.
••
This concept has provoked great con–
troversy within the United States and
throughout the world In general.
Alternativea
What
can
be done to prevent the un·
derdeveloped nations from resoning to
the "politics of desperatoon " l A P.timary
necessity is the expansoon of food pro–
duction both
on
the developed and d.,.
veloping nations
But. as Dr. Steonhan observad, ex·
pansion of fand under c:uluvatton
1n
the
U.S. in the next 25 yea,. appea,. un·
likely. Additional land brought onlo agri·
culture by the year 2000. he explained.
will be almost exactly balanced by that
lost to urbanization and othor dovel–
oprnent and that fost to erosion and soil
depletion. " And improvomonts in per
acre yield have been tapering off In re·
cent years. and future •mprovements
must be weighted against the fact that
new lands brought onto agnculturd in
the U.S. are marginal by present stan·
dards and the land lost to dovelopment
includes some of the most productiVo
lands.' '
Key:
fmproving Agriculture
in Oeveloping
N•tiona
Sorne
expens beheve thet the only
way the underdevelopod nutions
cun
realty
overcome food shortegos in the
long run is by producing more
them·
se/ves.
What can be dono on t hose na–
tions ·to increese ¡he quentity ol food
avaifable?
12
Roger Revene. Director of the Center
for Population Studies at Harvard Uní·
versity and another part•c:•p&nt in the
AAAS symposium, stressed that vir·
tually afl cultivatable fand on the poorer
countries
is
aJready under eultivation .
Though some agnculturalosts would
take exception wit h this, all woutd nev·
enheless agree that the effon has to be
directed primarily toward lncreasing per
acre yield. f or which thero is groat po–
tential. according to farm experts. Rev–
elle, recent ly returned from India , cited
inefficiency. inadequate cepita!, and
lack ol basic agricultura! educatoon as
problems standing in the way of this.
Another cntical problern area for con·
soderation. noted by other members of
the symposium.
LS
that of tremendous
losses of crops on the foeld, on storage.
and in distribution
··4>&Ses from agncuhural crops are
fantastic in devek>ping counwes,
··
sa•d
Dr. Wafter lynn of Comen Unovers11y.
He cited birds, fungi , onsects. bacteria!
infections, and rats as but a fow of the
problems. Availabfe food. stressed an·
other panelist, could
be
increased by as
rnuch as 50% by dealing with the prob·
lems ol pesos and storagel
The panelists emphasized thot, in
their opinion. the global food problem is
as much - if not more - a probfem of
allocatíon and distributton es e problem
of supply. and urged the omplementa·
tion of effective drstnbut•on and alloca...
uonsystems.
Can't Overtook Population
Discussions on world hunger always
get beck to the basoc queshon of world
population. Putting the brakes on popu·
fation
growth
in
the
famone-ndden
oountnes
•s
viewed.
at least
in
the
tndustnalized
world, asa majornecessityindeahngwith
the world food problem.
"With the besic fimits of the world on
land and water.
1
woufd ogree with
those who would say that somo control
of population growth is essential for the
long-term well-being of humanity. " em·
phasized food ••pen Edwon Manin.
Deputy U.S. Ambassador to fast No–
vember's Worfd Food Conference in
Roms
and
a
participan!
on !he
symposium.
Nevenheless, wortd populatoon os on–
creasing vinually unabated, and the
large growth ratas on the poorHt natoons
of the wortd show few of any sogns of
decreasing. Current estimates put wotfd
popufation growth at the rato of 2%
annually, or something over 7
5
rninion
people a year. For manv poor countrios.
the rata is about 3%. fndia's yearly pop·
ulat ion growth alone
ls
around 13 million.
Sorne have proposed that food assis·
tance be tied to popufation control. giv·
ong aid only to those countnes which are
seriously engaged in family planning
and contraceptoon promotoon programs.
But at the U.N. World Population Con·
ference in Bucharest last year. programs
of famify planning
rec<~oved,
on general,
a cold shoulder from representatoves of
the devefoping natoons. Sorne even
la·
beled binh control programs .. racial
genocide...
Rv9en11ess of
how
it is done, popu·
lat oon growt h
wi/1
be slowed, Dr. Stein·
han emphasized, adding, "Thare is
nothing in sight w ith
re~f
promose of
cutting back population,
excepr possibly
some ofthe disasters themsclves. · '
O
"End
of
Comucopla"
(CIHitinu<d from
J"'V 11)
protection of these agrochemocals How·
ever. as ecologists from Rache! Carson
onward have convirocongly documentad,
many animals
living
in
rural oreas
c&n·
not survive with pesticidas. The pesti·
cide-linked reproductiva failures of
predaceous birds, the supp ressed
growth of female white·tailed deer, and
the alterad .behavior petterns of trout
and mosquito fish havo an been widely
documentad. as have the increased re–
sistance of target pests to theor chemlcal
killers and t he danger these chemicafs
present to humans
Feedlot Fiasco
Another " eftocoent" mode of produc·
ttOn instituted
by
agnbus~ness
1s
the en
f.
mal feedlot where thousands of anomafs
are confined to cages or pens for 1nton·
sove leeding before butcherong. uve–
stock used to grata on open fields or
farmyatds, repfenoshing tha soof whoch
nourished
them with
the1r menure .
Today. animal feedlots produce over
75D mi llion tons of wastes every year
- wast es whoch cannot [easily) be re·
turned to the soil and instead become a
major contributor to water pollution .
One 10.000 animal lot produces sew·
age equivalen! to
a
city
of
164,000
people.
Th&
use of " eftocoent" feedlots on a
wide seale has
occurred '"
con:en
w1th
AmenCa·s steadity nsmg
consumption
of
bee1
and chicken . Moordong to the
1970 USDA Yearbook. per capi ta beef
and chicken consumptoon doubfed be–
tween 1950 and 1970. Thos orocrease
has caused
a
growing use of graon crops
lor animal feeds. Francia Moore Lappe,
in her incisivo book,
Diet for
11
Sme/1
Planet.
says that one-half the grain pro–
duced in the U. S. is led to livestock.
while only about one tenth of the usable
plant protein
ís
returned
to
humans
as
protein in edible meat
In an article in
Chem1stry
magarone.
lappe wrote, " We leed
86
pen:ent of
all our com. berley. oats and grain sor·
ghum and over 90 percent of our non·
"Lavish
Banquet"
(Conrinu<d
from
pog•
9)
in order to 8><pand ol$ hvestock production.
" Can the world afford a phonomonon
like the Soviet Union eating as wen as
we are doing?" asked Borgstrom.
The Feast for tha Few
The most croticaf aspect of the food
crisis. stressed the MSU egronomost, os
that the developed world has used its
ec:onomic power. as mirrored in mount·
ing purchasing power and growong af.
fluenoe.
10
lurther strengthen ots food
empires.
" We talk about feast or famone for the
futuro biflions,.. saod Borgstrom. " Very
few realiza that on the modst of this cru·
ciaf crisis
we
in
1he
alffuem wol1d
lhr8'N
the most tavish banque1 1he worfd ever
saw . • . • Never in my liletime have
1
seen a period so devoid of common
sense and farsightednoss as in these
seventies.
··
O
exponed soybean crop to fovestock In
addotion to thos vast amount of plant
food whoch could be eaten woth greater
benefit
by
people, American hvHtock
are fed hundreds of thousands of tons of
fishrneal and over a monoon tons of molk
products every year.•·
Reliance on these energy·intensive.
environmentany damagong farm tech·
niques has grown along woth tho avar·
age size of farms on the
U.
S. Victims of
!he infamous "economics of scale, .. the
small tarmer cannot compete with agri·
business behemoths such as Tenneco,
Del Monte or Safeway.
But rising fuel costs and matenals
shonages may eventually force even
agnbusinesuo retum to natural produc·
tion techníques. l.ast wonter. the preSf.
dent of the Fenilizer lnstotute termed the
fertilizar shonage ' the
most
depressi ng
sotuation
rve
ever known ••
One
way
out
of
this situation, os, of course. a
retum t.o farming methods which em·
phasize labor rather than fuel
Soma ways on which agnculture can
return
10
ecological (and ecoroomocal)
production methods are:
- A return to the use of manure and
crop rotation systems as replacomonts
forcherñical fertilizors.
- The replacement ol current pre·
ventive
pest;cide
dousmgs
with a
tre&t·
only·when-necessary pesto<:ide appli·
catoon policy. Such a swotch would re·
duce pesticide use and oould .decreese
energy consumptoon by
35
to 50 por·
cent below presentlevels.
- The widespread ontroductoon of
bi–
ological control of pests
- A panialretum to human labor on
tho farm, coupled woth the ontroductoon
of renewable, decentrafized altemative
sources of
energy
to
power
farm
activi·
ties. Wind power and hydro-power can
easily be reinstated on many farms,
while the devefopmenl of solar power
and the generation of methane gas frorn
animal wastes coufd substantially lower
the impact of rising fuel costs on the
farmer and lessen the impect ol farm
technology on the fand .
lronically. the ma¡or agrobusoness cor·
poradons cannot atford to make rhese
energy and env•ronment sev•ngs
changes - the ..econom•es of scale··
prevent them from doong so Mross the
country, a few smalf !arme,., hopong to
avoid the financ.al squeeze of nlfng fuel
and materials priees, are taking the or·
ganic plunge .
But until the economic reahties of
high fuel prices and mataroafs shonages
hit corporate farmers the way con·
sumers, small larmers and less devol·
oped nations have been hit, they will
continue to squander food and energy
resources and degrade the rural envo·
ronment .
In a tome of rosong populatoon and
dwindling resources. neither the nation
nor the wortd can afloro to encourage
an agricultura! system whoch aflows en–
vironmentaf degradatoon, profhgate en·
ergy use and onhuman tachnology to
masqueradeas " efficoerocy ...
O
CaJhtriñt
Ltrza
ls
CO·tdiiOr
o{
l!nvtron.
~:~~n~;::~~ ~~f¡:~ntin~~t JA:'~':/s'o~:{
working on ag_rlru/turof ond
nutrlliona1
fssutt ¡(Jr nv.tral years.
Tht
orlgmal
artld~
In
Journal or Soctal
I $SUe5
has 6cen
s llght(••
tdir.d
for
rtasDn
of
spoce.
WEEK
ENDINO MAP.CH 8.
19n