Mil-ob seems to think he has won an argument on Rwanda. He hasn't disputed that average land holdings per household are too small to be sustainable and will become even smaller with a population doubling time of less than 25 years, but says that the real problem is social inequality. He would like you to think in terms of a hacienda-like situation, where 2% of the people own more than 90% of the land, rather than farm sizes becoming too small due to subdivision on inheritance. Of course inequality has always existed and has gotten worse in Rwanda since the mid-1980s, but back then the Gini coefficient was 0.29, quite low. This was within a decade of the 1994 genocide.

http://www.fdu-rwanda.org/fr/rwanda/detail/article/rural-poverty-is-dramatically-increasing-in-rwanda-belgian-researcher-an-ansoms-reveals/index.html

This study from the mid-1980s shows that the richest households in the study community (with > 1 hectare) owned 20% of the land.

http://www.foodnet.cgiar.org/SCRIP/docs&databases/ifpriStudies_UG_nonScrip/pdfs/Southwestern_highlands/Land%20relations%20and%20the%20Malthusian%20trap%20in%20NW%20Rwanda,%20Andre%20a.pdf
http://www.aec.msu.edu/fs2/Rwanda/nonfarm_empl.pdf

This later study by Clay, Kampayana, and Kayitsinga on a random sample of more than 1,000 farm households shows that the richest 15% of households received 34.9% of the agricultural income.

http://www.aec.msu.edu/fs2/Rwanda/nonfarm_empl.pdf

Growth of coffee means nothing, as ~60% of smallholders grow it too. Everyone needs a cash crop to buy what they cannot grow or make themselves.

Clownfish,

Even your well-funded delay-n-deny thinktanks haven't disputed those Worldwatch graphs I linked to on grain production, just the interpretation. They claim that the developed countries were overproducing and dropped back, while growth continued in the rest of the world. There was some truth in this in the past, as the Green Revolution spread to new countries, but those big surpluses are gone now and grain prices are high. If, as you think, a lot more can be grown, why isn't it happening?

Jim. Absolutely agree.
Do you live in Stratford or thereabouts?

David

And your well-funded deceive-n-alarm thinktanks?

Are you trying to tell me that green groups don't sock away a tidy sum from their scare campaigns? Greenpeace Australia alone made a net profit of $2 mil in 2000. Imagine what they're raking in, worldwide.

So enough of this pose of the poor-but-honest tree-huggers versus the oligarchic conspiracy of the wicked corporations.

Anyway, why isn't more food being grown? Because corrupt and brutal governments hold their countries back from development. Because too many peasants are still locked into subsistence agriculture. Because city-bound fashionable Western elites, living in a fantasy world of noble-savage peasant idyllia (I think of it as "the Hameau de la reine syndrome"), try to deny developing countries the very things that have brought themselves so much prosperity.

Cheryl,

Being innumerate is hardly something to boast about. Your idea and (apparently) Loudmouth's that all we need to do is spread development and any population issues will fix themselves might have worked 70 or 80 years ago, although some cultures are fairly resistant to change.

The problem is that with current technology, it would take the resources of 5 Earths to sustainably give everyone a US or Australian standard of living and 3 Earths to give everyone a modest European standard of living, even if all the resources were divided equally. (See graph on p. 10 of 7/10/07 New Scientist.) Bjorn Lomborg has disputed the way the calculations were done and says that these figures should be cut in half. Even if he is correct, there still isn't enough to spread development everywhere, even for the existing population. A society has to have a certain level of wealth before it can provide effective education and health systems, sewers, old age pensions, etc., etc. If we really all are in it together, then we are likely to all go down the tubes together. Despite Cheryl's misrepresentations, it is hardly evil to try to save your own environment and society, as much as you can, even if you can't save the whole world.

By the way (sigh), as I have repeatedly said, we neither can nor should tell other countries what to do. I am, however, in favour of offering more evidence-based help to countries that want it.

You and Loudmouth might consider what is likely to happen politically as living standards fall. The search for scapegoats and growing support for extremist political and religious movements is only part of it. Take a look at what has happened in the recent European Parliament elections and remember that a million people voted for One Nation back in 2000.

Astounding ignorance Divergence. Who said that we'll every create three America's? You wouldn't be talking about GDP would you. You don't even agree that it's much of a measure of productivity.

Alas Divergence, the poor will always be with us. But how about we have a crack at feeding as many as we can and educating them? That's not on your agenda is it? You don't believe in the efficacy of education. You don't believe the NGOs, the UN have any moral or even economic substance. Not even on your radar. You're in your survival shelter cradling the shorn-off shotgun.

One problem that's overwhelmingly clear is that only a couple of the anti-pops have the foggiest idea of economics. They know nothing about trade and trade surpluses. They see the earth as a black box full of 'stuff' and once the 'stuff' runs out, we all fall over dead. That puts the mokka on creativity, ideas, commerce, intelligence, free will.

They're dead from the neck up. They want to save the world by creating a real life 'lifeboat' scenario. Nice work if you can get it.

Even Kanck is for humanitarian aid and immigration. That's a major surprise as the Sustainable People are pretty much out there with the BNP on some issues.

Isn't it amazing in the midst of a recession that we get a few people crawling out of their holes and saying we should pull of the drawbridge and re-create Fortress Australia.

VK3AUU,
Over the Range with a 14 inch rainfall, once in a blue moon - Bendigo way . Cheers.