‘Meanwhile African products are shut out of European and American markets by protectionist tariffs.’

Not anymore, it seems. This year, Guinea, Cameroon, Ghana and Chad and Nigeria removed their fuel subsidies in accordance with an order from the IMF. This brings fuel/gas prices in these countries to about the same price as the average US citizen pays, even though the average citizen earnings in these countries are much lower.

http://newsrescue.com/imf-forces-african-nations-to-remove-fuel-subsidies/#ixzz248Bb7tNZ

Then of course, there’s the violent overthrow of the West’s favourite horribly evil person, which has significantly changed the game plan for the African continent – as it was intended to. The African Union, under Colonel Gaddafi’s leadership had an estimated $150 billion worth of investments in Africa and advanced plans for an African Union Development Bank, which would have seriously reduced African financial dependence on the West. China was also a potential major player in a future African continent, but again that game plan has now changed.

As AFRICOM commander, Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, openly declared in 2008, its guiding principle was to protect “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market” and cited China’s increasing presence in the region as ‘challenging’ to American interests.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200908140153.html

All so sad, predictable and inevitable.

Keith - aren't you meant to be a member of the Club of Rome? What is it about limits to growth that you do not understand? How will Africa "develop" in the face of rampant population growth and declining world energy resources (not to mention climate change)?

"There is sufficient water for agriculture" - What a meaningless statement about a continent the size of Africa. Of course there is water but not always in the place where it is needed.

Looking for a difference between Japan and the Phillipines? Maybe rampant population growth in the latter is holding developmental goals back in the latter?

My prediction for Africa - widespread famine / habitat destruction / ethnic conflict in a self-reinforcing spiral downwards. I'll give you 100:1 odds on that versus "development".

Killarney,

One wonders what will happen to Africa if a "Green Revolution" comparable to India's is realised.

India has had much of its "living" soil destroyed. The microbes that live and maintain the soil's vitality have been destroyed through the use of pesticides and fertilizers and the uptake of monoculture in farming practice. These are of course purchased from the giant corporations - along with the hybrid seeds that are sterile or designed to fail in successive plantings.

If Africa is to build on its assets, it must reject a takeover by Western corporate-led agricultural practices. It must hold tight to traditional knowledge and only take the best advice from the West in the preservation of its soil.

The advent of AFRICOM, a U.S. military and spy base, suggests the the future of Africa is dim. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq if you don't believe me.

The U.S. will use a combination of warmongering and bribes to cherrypick Africa, take the best it has to offer, ensure that other nations like China and Russia don't get much of a look in.

African nations, if they are wise, will keep the U.S. and International Corporations from entering the continent. They should look to South America for assistance and to use as a model.

*The microbes that live and maintain the soil's vitality have been destroyed through the use of pesticides and fertilizers and the uptake of monoculture in farming practice.*

Hang on there, Poirot. You will find that in Africa, many soils are
simply clapped out, due to lack of some of the elements required for plant growth. You will find that using fertilisers on these soils
actually increases microbes, not decrease them. Fact is that without
replacing nutrients being removed by crops, farming is essentially
mining.

Yabby,

I'm sure that's true in some instances.

But it doesn't rebut the assertion that the "encouraged" overuse of pesticides and fertilisers has degraded huge tracts arable land in India.

*But it doesn't rebut the assertion that the "encouraged" overuse of pesticides and fertilisers has degraded huge tracts arable land in India.*

Poirot, the misuse of just about anything can do damage. Too much
salt or coffee can kill you. That does not mean that you should give
up salt or coffee, it means that you should learn to use them sensibly.

Yabby,

I agree.

But let's look at the situation in India.

Indian peasant farmers have been encouraged to go into debt to plant monoculture crops. They have been encourage to pour fertilizers and pesticides on their crops. They are are manacled by their debt, added to which is the purchase of seeds, where once they used to share their seeds. Varieties have been reduced from the hitherto thousands that were available. Peasant farmers have also been encouraged to buy expensive pumps to over use the precious groundwater, further washing away the nutrients in the soil (only to be replaced with more purchased nutrient from Western corporations.)Free electricity was supplied in some instances to keep the pumps operating 24/7.

There have been over 200,000 suicides of peasant farmers in debt to foreign corporations since the beginning of the Green Revolution. Western corporations and industry have, for all intents and purposes, taken over agriculture, by selling petrochemicals and fertilizers as the magic formula for farming. But it's not magic and it is unsustainable. The only thing that can rehabilitate clapped-out soils in any long-term way is to get the manure back in, to grow nitrogen trapping crops and plow them back into the ground. The microbes will come back and ongoing organic maintenance will keep them there.

(Many northern African peasants are being taught how to improve their soils organically, to counter the harsh sterilizing effects of the sun on the topsoil)

Who would wish India's experience on Africa?

*The only thing that can rehabilitate clapped-out soils in any long-term way is to get the manure back in, to grow nitrogen trapping crops and plow them back into the ground.*

Not quite so, Poirot. No soils were more clapped out than those of
Western Australia, them being ancient. It was the introduction of superphosphate, then trace elements, (copper, zinc, moly,) then potash, then legumes which do indeed reintroduce nitrogen, which turned them around. This is basic plant agronomy, which you don't seem to understand.

Companies simply supply the inputs. It is up to Govts to educate their farmers in what to use and why. India would have a stack of advisers doing exactly that. That is exactly how Western Australian agriculture went about it. Today, WA soils have far more microbes and are far more productive, then ever before. Some of the same scientists who worked in WA, now work in Africa to teach their farmers the same, funded by none other then that guru of capitalism,
Bill Gates.I know because when I ring them about some complex problem associated with things like rhizobium bacteria, I'm told they are in Africa, courtesy of the Gates Foundation.

The really big question will come down the track. Can those phosphate and potash mines supply enough elements to feed ever growing billions?
Somehow I doubt it.

One Man, One Cow, One Planet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y1xMauClzU

It's easy to make bets against Africa's development - that's a sport amongst those on both the hard left and right. You get the single lens theorists (population) and the catastrophists (we're all doomed) and then you get those who straddle both camps.

It's hard to talk about Africa as its a patchwork quilt of radically different historical, social, economic and religious development. The issues which face Kenya are very different from those that face the Congo.

One small but important benefit is that Africa is now included in the European supply chain of goods. Exports come out and imports go in. The regular interconnectivity of African states with larger supply chains means it is cheaper for African companies to export goods. They don't need to hire a special train or ship. They can piggyback on existing routes.

It is called the looting of Africa Keith and the West has been doing it for many decades.

Keith you know a lot more about who pulls the really big strings of power and how corrupt they have become,yet tinker at the edges reality in some vain hope you can have your cake and eat it.

Yabby,

Just a small point. Since in agriculture the trace elements are not actually 'lost', but rearranged in combination with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen (largely available from the atmosphere) during plant development - in its energy compounds of cellulose, sugars and starches - these trace elements, the Ca, Mo, K, Cu, Zn etc (even P), will remain in the trash and excreta produced. So it should be possible to 'recycle' these elements from produce used/consumed on a localised basis. The big problems start when we 'export' that produce, thereby limiting the scope for recycling.

Sure, the above is simplistic, but by full recycling of trash, refuse and excrement (and with use of legumes, nitrogen fixers) it should be possible to minimise the need to use Superphosphate and Potash? The aim being to restore 'balance' in the soil habitat and ecology, through application of selective minimal inputs.

Full recycling would of course necessitate diverting treated sewage from the cities to agricultural application. Not so easy to do, but may be possible - and at some point may become essential.

Maybe 'balanced' trade will one day have to take account of relative trace element balance - for as you indicate, agriculture is both an art and a science. Unless the oceans can be 'managed' so as to recycle our waste to produce fish as fertiliser for our soils, we will have to do a lot more terrestrial recycling.

In essence, mass export of agricultural produce could ultimately lock Africa into a vortex of ever-diminshing returns, and ever increasing dependance on synthesized fertilisers. Maybe one day the world will have to move to an extensively holistic permaculture model - when backs are really up against the wall.

Yabby,

You're the type of intelligent bloke with a good knowledge of biology and biodiversity who could lead the way on the question of unsustainable farming practice.

As to "advisers" - they're the ones who toodle along from the World Bank, WTO and IMF - they're the ones who are interested in pushing agribusiness on huge scales that shut out the peasants and herd them towards the cities...

Here are a few articles on the land grabs and dams that have altered the ground rules for peasants and subsistence farmers in Africa and India.
This is quite a long article (but worth reading) by Arandhati Roy on India's experience - 3,300 big dams built since independence.
http://www.narmada.org/gcg/gcg.html

Kenya and Ethiopia:
http://slowfood.com/international/food-for-thought/focus/140374/blind-development=7BSFA9?-session=query_session:3AA7E2B91412401646KLEBF58FDS

*As to "advisers" - they're the ones who toodle along from the World Bank, WTO and IMF*

Well no Poirot. I am talking about people trained in agronomy and
animal husbandry. It was good science which let farmers in a place
like Western Australia, develop the industry here. It was the
interaction between farmers and scientists, which slowly developed
the answers. Many of the answers were not black and white and took
time to develop, as agriculture is more complex than many people
acknowledge. Change one variable and that can affect many things
along the chain. etc. The problem is a human one. People focus on
one issue and are convinced that they are correct, as they only see it from that perspective. They ignore other unintended consequences,
which they have often overlooked. Farmers, scientists and
other Govt officials, suffer from the affliction.

I read your articles on dams and once again to me, this is really
associated with the ever growing problem of too many people. The
question of dams being good or bad is hardly black and white.

Without dams, there would be few cities, much of the world would starve etc. Yes, they affect many people when they are built.

If you destroyed say the Hoover dam in America, what do you think
would happen?

Yabby,

You oversimplify, as usual. It's the sheer scale of damming in the developing world that removes peasant's autonomy and their ability to feed themselves. Comparing WA and the Hoover Dam to the problems exacerbated by 'development" in India is disingenuous. Your constant refrain of "too many people" is not without merit, however, stripping peasants of their livelihoods and their ability to feed themselves is the issue.

The Mekong River is a case in point:

"Around 60 million people depend on the Mekong River for fish, irrigation, transportation and water. Known regionally as the "Mother of Waters", the Mekong supports one o the world's most diverse fisheries, second only to the Amazon. Those fisheries are a major source of protein for people living in the Mekong basin....If built, [proposed by the governments of Laos, Thailand and Cambodia to cascade 11 dams on the river's mainstream] the dams would severely damage the river's ecology and block major fish migration that ensures regional food supply to millions of people."

This is in addition to the Nam Theum 2 in Laos which has already displaced thousands, and was built primarily to supply ninety percent of the power generated to Thailand and Cambodia.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6344

*You oversimplify, as usual*

Well yes, Poirot. In 350 words, I cannot write an epistle, I can
simply highlight some main points about the big picture.

Of course dams will affect some people. But you cannot keep cramming
millions more people into third world countries, them wanting
electricty, water for irrigation, water for their cities etc and
not expect that. So I guess countries make decisions based on the
greater good, ie how many million people benefit, to the detriment
of how many thousands.

This is not as the Ethopians did, ie kick the peasants off their
land, in order to sell it to Saudi Arabia.

No doubt those affected will be upset, as it will mean a change in
lifestyle and methods and we all hate uncertainty. But you can actually grow fish and crustaceans in dams. You can grow great crops with irrigation. You can have tourism on the lakes etc. Its not all
bad news, its just about change and compensation.

None of these things would be an issue, if there were less people,
as then there would be plenty of land in relation to population.
What usually happens sadly, is that more forest and wildlife are
sacrificed, to make way for more people. So other species and biodiversity are the biggest losers.

Would you rather that they built coal fired power stations?

Conflict of interest about land use will keep growing, whilst we
keep breeding like rabbits.That is the reality

You're right, Yabby, that its complicated.

But those people on the Mekong didn't actually need electricity, albeit that they're enjoying their new houses and their electricity, but what's the point of doing that if they can no longer feed themselves - if they are left without livelihoods?

Many of those dams in India have merely served corporate monoculture - planting thirsty crops like cotton and sugar cane. Even golf courses have been built while the peasants have been deprived of water and driven off the land.

There's nothing wrong with people subsistence farming, leading healthy productive lives. There is something wrong with shanty towns springing up at the edges of cities, full of poverty-stricken itinerant farmers and their families...that's what's happening in India and will happen in Africa if it follows the same lead.

Yeah, that's the problem: too many dam people!

What we need is a nuclear war, clear the world of its surplus population. Israel is planning to instigate one in the next few weeks but it's only Iran that is going to be vaporized.

Now, looking across the world, who should we start with? Can't be Americans because they are exceptional. Can't be the British because they are too cultured. Can't be Israelis because they are God's Children. Can't be gays because that would look like discrimination. It can't be based on skin colour because the white races might be outvoted.

Gee, what to do? I'm not Solomon.