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The Forum > Article Comments > Panic buying and food riots - the global food crisis revisited > Comments

Panic buying and food riots - the global food crisis revisited : Comments

By Joseph Dancy, published 1/10/2009

How did agricultural production increase so abruptly in the past and how can we continue increase productivity in the future?

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Okay anthonykn
The question in practice is always the economic one, however called, of how best to satisfy human wants involving scarce resources including time, labour, water and capital.

There is a real issue of scarcity that cannot be conjured away by appeal to government (otherwise why not put all food production under central planning?).

The fundamental question is how best to rationalise the use of scarce resources; by voluntary means through the market, or coerced means through the state. But it is not clear that Shiva is, in the final analysis, vindicating the political means.

The whole purpose of the Green Revolution was to feed people, which it did. Those who allege over-population seem to be saying: “Just enough of me, far too much of you.”

As to disrupting social relations of production, so what? So did the invention of the wheel; the car put wagon-wheel makers out of work; and so on. The desideratum is the satisfaction of human wants, not the preservation of social relations of production per se.

If the disruption of traditional technologies has the result that more people go hungry, *that* is a valid argument against such disruption. The issue remains the economic one of how best to use scarce resources, not the preservation of traditional technologies per se.

The voluntarism and group management that Shiva mentions stand on their own merits. They are not an argument in favour of political decision-making, since their success is all the argument they need. To the extent that political decision-making is required to make them work, it is because of the underlying lack of private property rights in water.

The World Bank is a political organisation, created by governments for redistributionist reasons: foreign aid handouts, by forcing taxpayers to fund junkets for vested interests. The planned chaos resulting from its interventions that Shiva notes is the characteristic of all central planning. Shiva’s vague understanding of economics miscalls this interventionism ‘privatisation’, which ideology the bank preaches, but rejects and contradicts in its very nature. It is an argument against political interventions, not in favour of them.
Posted by Jefferson, Thursday, 1 October 2009 1:18:47 PM
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... waiting for the usual suspects to: weigh in against those evil women; blame it all on the wicked mining companies; blame Al Gore; blame Ian Plimer; blame Tim Flannery; blame James Hansen; claim that it's all because we've abandoned Biblical teaching; make some really bizarre long-winded rant about Jesus, Jews, the Vatican and the UN; implore us all to return to simple subsistence-based agriculture; and predict the extinction of the human race, nay every living species on the planet. Oh, and something about polar bears. Can't forget them.
Posted by Clownfish, Thursday, 1 October 2009 2:05:05 PM
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Very interesting Colinsett! It would be great if you could post some sources on these less acknowedged comments by Borlaug and Fenner so I could do some reading on it.
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Thursday, 1 October 2009 3:46:59 PM
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Michael-in-Adelaide, Borlaug’s take on population pressure can be assessed from, for one instance, his Nobel Prize acceptance speech which should be available on the web. Frank Fenner’s book Nature Nurture and Chance, provides just one window out of many on this human treasure’s acceptance of the reality of humanity’s problem from population pressure.
Posted by colinsett, Thursday, 1 October 2009 4:08:13 PM
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Actually, I don't think Borlaug would be in despair so much, as consider it a work in progress.

This passage from wikipedia is most apposite (and would apply to many of the most vehemently green misanthropists on these forums):

'Borlaug dismissed most claims of critics, but did take certain concerns seriously. He stated that his work has been "a change in the right direction, but it has not transformed the world into a Utopia".

Of environmental lobbyists he stated, "some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things".'

There is also an excellent interview with Borlaug on "Penn & Teller's Bullsh!t: Eat This!", in which Penn Jillette also offers this sage advice: "Unless you and yours are starving, YOU need to SHUT - THE F*K - UP!"
Posted by Clownfish, Thursday, 1 October 2009 4:44:56 PM
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*If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things".*

They probably would. But then Borlaug was also fortunate enough
as are you Clownfish, that he could sleep with his wife with
impunity. They would be outraged that you are so lucky, whilst
they are meant to cross their legs for the pope, or be forced
to feed far more kids then they ever wanted, just because
they enjoy a pit of hanky panky and cannot afford your options.
Posted by Yabby, Thursday, 1 October 2009 5:19:34 PM
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