> Evidently colonialism is a much more powerful
> force than democratic argumentation!
Only in the near term! Democratic argumentation with a sufficient
leadership, convincing agruments, good logic, ample difusion, a little
help and lots of patience are the only options capable of producing
lasting solutions (until unforeseen circumstances require further
changes once again).
Remember Gandhi (and even he - if not his work - was stopped by a
bullet).
> On Thu, 20 Nov 1997 reap@interlink.net wrote:
>
> > >Dear Regi
> >
> > I was just in the Philippines for 1 month and came to the same conclusion as
> > you in South India (I think), that is that the land base is no longer large
> > enough to support the populations food requiremeent with a rice based diet
> > any longer.
> >
> > In the Philippines I also felt they needed to increase the amount of root
> > crops they were growing. They can produce 4X as much food energy per hectare
> > as rice. Also they had a need to reduce their meat and fish consumption and
> > increase the grain legume and vegetables in their diet to provide greater
> > food security for the nation. Much of their livestock feed is imported. The
> > poor are finding animal protein and rice too expensive. Much of the need
> > appeared not to be a production problem on how to grow more productive food
> > crops but how to get them to accept these foods into their diet.
> >
> > With rising population, a decreasing agricultural land base (because of
> > rapid development) and the combination of the El Nino, global warming, and
> > deforestation to deplete water resources, the outlook for food security
> > based on wetland rice was pretty bleak. It seems that there are lots of food
> > options available to increase food security rather than putting the emphasis
> > on pumping water from deeper wells and more money into rice research.
> > However the cultural barriers to changing diet appear strong.
> >
> > Roger Samson
>
> I agree with you regarding the cultural barriers to changing diet. Sri
> Lanka for instances spends millions of dollars every year importing
> lentils - a main source of protein - but one that doesn't grow in their
> climate. There is a project funded by the Asian Development Bank and
> implemented by the Intl. Crops. Res. Inst. for Semiarid Tropics, which is
> trying to replace lentils in Sri Lankan diets with pigeonpea - another
> legume, which is highly cultivable and adapted to tropical climates and
> soils. Increase in pigeonpea cultivation and consumption is aimed at
> reducing the huge foreign exchange outflows on lentils. However the hitch
> is the non-Tamil population is refusing to accept pigeonpea - reasons
> given include "difficult to cook", "not comparable in tatse to lentil",
> etc. For researchers, this is difficult to understand, since lentil is
> not a native crop and Sri Lankans were consuming pigeonpea prior to the
> introduction of lentils by the British when they colonized Sri Lanka. If
> the people could so easily shift to lentil, what prevents them from
> changing back to pigeonpea. Evidently colonialism is a much more powerful
> force than democratic argumentation!
>
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--Douglas M. Hinds, Director General Centro para el Desarrollo Comunitario y Rural A.C. (CeDeCoR) (Center for Community and Rural Development) - (non profit) Cd. Guzman, Jalisco 49000 MEXICO e-mail: cedecor@ipnet.com.mx, dmhinds@acnet.net, dhinds@.ucol.mx
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