[p2p-research] debate on open agriculture

Fri Jul 17 08:52:49 CEST 2009

Hi Ryan,

Do you think Chinese shrimp farms will still be exporting to Florida
restaurants when oil is at $400 ...  It seems to me you are assuming a
linear development of wealth creation and ignoring the grave resource
challenges that countries like China will be facing very very soon ...

I can tell you that already here Asian leaders are talking about the end of
this type of globalization and refocusing on Asian economic integration . ..

I don't think the choice is one between continuing business as usual and
pastoral regression, but one of developing renewable energies, smart organic
agriculture, and significantly relocalized production logics to take into
account resource and fossil fuel depletion.

But clearly, assuming that China and India and other countries will reach
our level of consumption, and hoping that the extra 3 planets needed as its
required resource basis will be found, doesn't sound very realistic to me,

Michel

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 2:47 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 12:53 PM, Kevin Carson <
> free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 7/16/09, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
>>
>> >  There's no doubt that industrial-scale food production can crank
>> >  the largest amount of food Joules with the least amount of people.
>>
>> At the point of production, you're probably right.  But if total labor
>> includes amortization of the capital outlays for machinery, the
>> long-distance shipping cost, the food processors' and grocers'
>> markups, etc., from the consumer's perspective it will likely be
>> cheaper in labor terms to "make" rather than "buy."
>>
>
>
> Centralization actually is quite efficient without qualification.  What
> follows below is a different set of political goals than efficiency which is
> typically taking as greatest output at lowest net cost.
>
>
>>
>> >  We're faced with an ageing demographics with people out of work.
>> >
>> >  A retired couple could occupy themselves quite well with a quarter
>> acre,
>> >  or around 0.10 ha (50 x 50 m). In principle they could derive 100% of
>> >  their calories from that space, using high-intensity organic gardening
>> >  methods with no to very little mineral/synthetic fertilizer input.
>>
>> And in the Third World, where surplus labor with no earning power is
>> even more of a problem, that goes double.  The person who was evicted
>> (or whose parents were evicted) from their own subsistence plot, and
>> who is currently living in a tent city or squatter's shack or in a
>> gutter in Calcutta, can't afford to buy the output of cash-crop,
>> export-oriented agribusiness no matter how "efficient" it is, because
>> he's a surplus laborer who can't earn any money at all to buy food no
>> matter how cheap.  Putting him back on his own land, land that was
>> stolen from him or his parents so it could be used to grow cash crops
>> for those who can afford them, where he can produce directly for his
>> own consumption, is the ideal solution.
>>
> I agree with all of this again.  But it isn't going to happen if the
> primary social driver is efficiency.  You need to establish political
> systems that value full employment, low consumption of energy, etc. for some
> clear gain in comparative terms to how those gains could otherwise be
> achieved.
>
> It's far from clear you will end up with these outcomes if you simply set
> objectives (like a cap and trade system).  As the original writer wrote (and
> I agree) decentralized agrarian systems are not very sensible ways to live
> in a modern world.  Technologies for harvesting trees by the dozens an hour
> in Minnesota or Norway make far more sense than hiring two guys in Brazil or
> Indonesia to swing an axe.
>
> I certainly wouldn't want to be amongst those damned to live on a 1/4
> hectare when Europeans and Americans get to eat strawberries in November and
> fatty fish in the Caribbean when they crawl off a huge diesel-powered cruise
> ship.  I'd want my shot at wealth like those enjoying the best the planet
> has to offer.
>
> So, you either compel people to give up the opportunity for improvement or
> you create incentives (income redistributions) for the political outcomes
> you want (and can convince others to want.)
>
> Decreasing amounts of microcredit are used for agricultural production
> globally.  It's not a very safe business--risks are high and production is
> quite variable.  Scale it up just a bit, and you get lots of credit from
> governments, but still relatively little business credit.  Yet China has
> booming shrimp farms (almost all smaller scale) and similar enterprises.
> These sell shrimp that are eaten in restaurants in Florida (or Georgia)
> where one sees billboards complaining about it.  But such systems give
> people cheap shrimp and lots of logistics people good jobs flying airplanes,
> working in airports, etc.  You can't just wipe that out without realizing
> you are compelling places to a lower standard of living.  If the trade-offs
> are worth it to informed citizens, they will lower their outputs in favor of
> the environment, etc.  The issue is one of education and politics...not one
> of technology.
>
> Protein production is very challenging and fish/sea creatures are the
> answer.  Asia is well ahead on this front...especially China.  But pollution
> is high and resource use is dramatic.  But why shouldn't they do it if they
> can make a good living?  Europe and the US will need to volunteer to be poor
> before developing countries will volunteer to not be wealthier.
>
> Ryan
>
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