*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.