The problem that I have with the Avery assumption and
proclamation that modern agriculture will save rainforests,
environmental degradation and hunger is that it is based on a lot
mis-information.
First of all, the phenomenon of 3rd world agrarian peasants clearing
the forests to eak out their livings isn't because they have not been
brought into the wonders of the modern world. It is more like
because they have been the victims of it. All over the world, there
is hunger because there is a mal-distribution of the over-supply of
world food and this mal-distribution holds true for basic education,
land, health care, and on and on. There has also been a break down
of the old, sustainable ag customs in most parts of the world as well
as a gobbling up of the best ag land by wealthy land owners who do
not actually need it to produce food (and what food they may produce
doesn't go to the poor masses anyway) and at the same time there has
been little good modern education to fill the void.
So, we have lots of poor, hungry people on marginal lands with
neither traditional wisdom nor modern education to help them be
more successful farmers or even to give them much hope. Is it any
wonder they might cut down forests and stick every spare bird and
critter in the stewpot? If we go even further in the corporate
farming (monoculture, GE, agro-chems, industrial size...) paradigm, I
just don't understand how it can be argued that this will help either
hunger or the environmental effects of poor, desperate people? Now,
if there were more time and attention put into helping marginalized
farmers get back to many old, sustainable ways along with educating
them as to the new culture techniques we've discovered since (and
helping them to reclaim their love and respect for land and
ecosystems), and if good ag lands and market access were made
available for serious farmers, THEN I think we might see some postive
changes in terms of hunger AND re-forestation. Seems to me that
organic agriculture has a lot to offer in this regard.
The problem of deforestation, environmental degradation, poverty and
hunger are not due to organic and/or sustainable production
practices. They have a lot to do with greed, mis-management, bad
politics, corruption, ignorance and the breakdown of traditional
cultures (people cultures and plant cultures) as well as civil wars,
unregulated pollution and urban sprawl, including golf courses,
dumps, industrial parks, highways and parking lots. This won't be
easily solved by fancy ag technology.
What I CAN see the proliferation of corporate farming doing in the
developing countries is the same as I see in this country, only
worse (because there are fewer mediating forces). Farmers (already a
dieing species in developing countries too) will be forced off their
lands into the squalor of the cities where their lack of training and
education makes them vulnerable to the vaguaries of the cheap-labor
market (and "cheap" food doesn't mean much when you have to struggle
to pay for it), cities will continue to sprawl, and forests will
continue to be chopped down because of the value of their timber or
the land they sit on (think of the office buildings, the rents! and
we have to put our toxic waste somewhere!) and whatever connection
people may have still had toward the land will continually diminish
until the world clamors for monocrop chem lawns and landscaped vistas
instead of those untidy, dirty "brush" areas (formerly known as
forests, wetlands, prairies, etc.)
Avery (and ADM I see has similar adds on tv now) is giving us a bait
and switch, in my opinion. He baits us with "this is good for the
environment" and the 'switch' is that it is good for a bunch of
conspicuous corporations and their stock holders who have not shown
much benevolent interest in ecosystems, that I can see, so far.
Forests can't express economic demand (and neither can poor people to
an appreciable extent), so this approach to let the "invisible hand"
(which is becoming increasinly *visible*, imo) make these sorts of
decisions is asking for trouble. I applaud all of you (many of whom
are more technically astute and articulate than I) for balking at
this and pointing out it's flaws. And thank you Alex for referencing
the tale of the "Emperor's New Cloths."
Sorry to make this letter so long, but I don't know how to say it
more succinctly.
Anita
Anita Graf
313-F Conner Hall
Dept. of Agricultural and Applied Economics
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602-7509
(706) 542-1915 phone
(706) 542-0739 fax
agraf@agecon.uga.edu
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