[p2p-research] the new green revolution in AFrica

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Having worked in organic agriculture for a time in a couple of ways, the 
basic adage is, feed the soil for healthy plants, and healthy plants resist 
pests.

And if you want to feed the soil, ground up rock does an excellent job:
  http://www.remineralize.org/
"Remineralize the Earth promotes the regeneration of soils and forests 
worldwide with finely ground rock dust as a sustainable alternative to 
chemical fertilizers and pesticides, creating fertile soils much as the 
Earth does. Not only do we need to recycle and return the organic matter to 
the soil, it is equally vital to return all of the mineral nutrients which 
create fertile soils and healthy crops and forests. Remineralization is 
essential to restore ecological balance and stabilize the climate. "

So yes, that person does not know much other than (wrong) "conventional 
farming" wisdom. And worse, when you saturate the soil with one type of 
fertilizer like nitrogen, it statistically drives out all the 
micronutrients, leading to less healthy plants (requiring heavy pesticides 
because they can not make plant defense compounds) that are less healthy to 
eat (mosty starch and fiber, few micronutrients).

A good book on the science of alternative agriculture that explains the 
chemistry of much of this from 1987:
http://www.amazon.com/Towards-Holistic-Agriculture-Scientific-Approach/dp/0080342116

This stuff has been known for decades. Words fail me to describe the 
disaster that has been foisted on farmers, the biosphere, and the public by 
people who don't want to know this.

See also, from 1909:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers_of_Forty_Centuries

Also, as for the USA, a deeper issue:
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
"By far the greatest impact on the American landscape comes not from 
urbanization but rather from agriculture. According to the U.S. Department 
of Agriculture, farming and ranching are responsible for 68 percent of all 
species endangerment in the United States. ... About 349 million acres in 
the U.S. are planted for crops. This is the equivalent of about four states 
the size of Montana. Four crops -- feeder corn (80 million acres), soybeans 
(75 million acres), alfalfa hay (61 million acres) and wheat (62 million 
acres) -- make up 80 percent of total crop acreage. All but wheat are 
primarily used to feed livestock. ... Despite acreage being paved over, 
malled over or overbuilt with condos, developed land is generally 
concentrated in and near cities. The loss of farm or ranch land is 
insignificant compared to the total acreage available in the U.S. The real 
message here is that we can afford to restore hundreds of millions of acres 
in the U.S. if we simply shift our diets away from meat. Many organizations 
spend their time fighting sprawl and championing agriculture as a benign use 
of the land. If a similar amount of effort were directed toward reducing 
agricultural production, we would produce far greater protection and 
restoration for declining species, endangered ecosystems and ecological 
processes. When critics suggest that we don't have the money to buy land for 
wildlands restoration, they are forgetting agricultural subsidies, which 
amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. For what we spend to prop up 
marginal agricultural producers, we could easily buy most of the private 
farm and ranch land in the country This would be a far more effective way to 
contain sprawl, restore wildlands, bring back endangered species, clean up 
water, slow the spread of exotic species and reduce soil erosion."

Those are the facts for a happy world with organic agriculture:
* feed the soil with ground up rock; and
* eat less meat.

As I mentioned elsewhere, this is the kind of world GMOs may lead to:
http://www.saynotogmos.org/klebsiella.html
"In the early 1990s a European genetic engineering company was preparing to 
field test and then commercialize on a major scale a genetically engineered 
soil bacteria called Klebsiella planticola. The bacteria had been tested--as 
it turns out in a careless and very unscientific mannner--by scientists 
working for the biotech industry and was believed to be safe for the 
environment. Fortunately a team of independent scientists, headed by Dr. 
Elaine Ingham of Oregon State University, decided to run their own tests on 
the gene-altered Klebsiella planticola. What they discovered was not only 
startling, but terrifying--the biotech industry had created a biological 
monster--a genetically engineered microorganism that would kill all 
terrestrial plants. After Ingham's expose, of course the gene-altered 
Klebsiella planticola was never commercialized. But as Ingham points out, 
the lack of pre-market safety testing of other genetically altered organisms 
virtually guarantees that future biological monsters will be released into 
the environment."

and:
"Klebsiella planticola--The Gene-Altered Monster That Almost Got Away"
http://www.purefood.org/ge/klebsiella.cfm

So much direction of resources to stupid (but profitable to some) ends. 
There are fairly straightforward ways to make the world work for everyone 
that don't entail taking so many reckless risks. Sure, when our knowledge of 
biology is better, and we have fancy robots to help, and we have space 
habitats to escape to, sure, then GMOs might make more sense.

Still, what a terrible weapon of war was created.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_the_earth
"Salting the earth refers to the practice of spreading salt on fields to 
make them incapable of being used for crop-growing. This was done in ancient 
times at the end of some wars as a punitive measure."

 From 1964:
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
"The Weaponry Revolution: New forms of weaponry have been developed which 
cannot win wars but which can obliterate civilization. We are recognizing 
only now that the great weapons have eliminated war as a method for 
resolving international conflicts. The ever-present threat of total 
destruction is tempered by the knowledge of the final futility of war. The 
need of a “warless world” is generally recognized, though achieving it will 
be a long and frustrating process."

We are so close to the edge in many ways -- just not the ones most people 
who claim to be leaders or who have vast wealth are worried about. :-)

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/

Kevin Carson wrote:
> On 10/27/09, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Thanks Sam for writing that main article, perhaps Stan or Kevin can add a
>> little note on the borlaugh article just mentioned?
> 
> Reading public comments by Normal Borlaug, I was often struck by his
> apparent ignorance of what organic farming methods actually entail.
> He made ex cathedra pronouncements that revealed an almost total lack
> of awareness of what organic farmers do.
> 
> This impression was confirmed by Devinder Sharma, in "The Dr Borlaug I
> knew."  http://www.stwr.org/food-security-agriculture/the-dr-borlaug-i-knew.html
> According to Sharma, Borlaug displayed a rather stubborn and
> irrational unwillingness to confront any information that called his
> view of the world into question.
> 
> <blockquote> Dr Borlaug remained committed to his belief in the
> indispensable role of chemical fertiliser and pesticides. He was so
> adamant that when the Third World Academy in Italy presented a paper
> on how Brazil had achieved remarkable crop yields in soybean and
> sugarcane without applying chemical nitrogen, he didn’t agree. It was
> only after he travelled to Brazil and saw for himself these crop yield
> results that he at least acknowledged the reality. But even then, he
> wouldn’t accept a vision of agriculture without chemical fertilisers
> and pesticides....
> 
> He would often tell me that if India had not followed the Green
> Revolution technology, the country would have needed to bring an
> additional 58 million hectares under cultivation to produce the same
> quantity of food that was being produced after the high-yielding
> varieties of wheat were introduced. My counter argument to this was
> that although the country saved 58 million hectares only 40 years
> after Green Revolution, more than double -- close to 120 million
> hectares -- are faced with varying degrees of degradation. Borlaug
> never pardoned me for espousing the cause of long-term sustainability
> in agriculture. He never accepted that the world could produce enough
> food with Low-external Input Sustainable Agriculture (LEISA)
> techniques. </blockquote>
> 
> In fact Borlaug's sterotyped image of organic methods as requiring
> less efficient use of land was a total strawman.  He deliberately
> ignored the existence of organic methods, like that of John Jeavons,
> that extracted a great deal more output per acre than conventional
> mechanized/chemical agriculture.
> 
> Sharma also confirms, in passing, the validity of critiques by Frances
> Moore Lappe:  that Green Revolution seeds are suited mainly for land
> with massively subsidized irrigation and fertilizer inputs, and are
> therefore designed primarily for the needs of the privileged
> landowning classes who have expropriated subsistence producers and
> converted their land to cash crop production.
> 
> <blockquote> These semi-dwarf [wheat] plants developed by Dr Borlaug
> responded to the application of chemical fertilisers and produced a
> bountiful grain harvest. The yields multiplied under favourable
> conditions...
> 
> Within a few weeks of the import [into India], the seed was made
> available in 5 kg packs and distributed widely in the areas where
> irrigation was abundant....
> 
> Agricultural scientists promoted the technology worldwide –
> cultivating the water guzzling high-yielding varieties of wheat (the
> same technology was subsequently applied to rice), applying chemical
> fertilisers and pesticides – and they were never able to understand
> why the environmentalists were opposed to the technology.
> </blockquote>
>