[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
eightprops wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
eightprops wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
In fact, organic and free range is the equivalent of poverty.
What does this even mean?
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS: It means that poor people would starve if all farmers were to switch to organic and free range farming only.
eightprops: So, industrial style farming is the reason poor people aren’t starving today?
It is the reason why more people can afford to eat more food and the reason why there are no starving people in industrialized nations like the US.
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS: Organic food might get cheaper but regular food would become more expensive.
eightprops: Regular means chemically and/or genetically altered?
Regular means cheaper and not all the hokey, organic BS marketing.
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS: People in developing nations farm organically because all the western technologies are too expensive to them. As a result they do not produce enough food.
eightprops: In reality, western nations sell their surplus grains/produce to developing nations, undermining the local farmers/producers. This usually leads to the downfall of local agriculture and the rise of further dependence upon industrialized nations. The Jamaican dairy industry is a perfect model of how this works.
Undermining? Does the US undermine Japanese farmers by selling the Japanese food they cannot grow themselves? Usually if low scale agriculture cannot compete it is because they don’t produce enough. It is not a bad thing when they get put out of business so that they can redirect their labor to new and more productive activities. You would have the government destroy the “surplus” food so as not the “undermine” unproductive farmers that live in other poor nations? Even giving it away would still put the under-producing farmers out of business. Better to trade with them, I say.
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS: They live in poverty and they don’t consider what they are doing to be “environmentally friendly” living. They want chemical fertilizers and bio-engineered seeds to put food in their bellies.
eightprops: In reality, these bio-engineered crops render non-altered crops sterile when they cross polinate. The bio-engineering companies essentially destroy adjacent plots of “organic” land and then claim their patented products are being grown illegally. The original farmer is forced into debt for “stealing” and usually ends up losing land.
Well this a political problem not an explicit farming problem; one that I agree with you about. This happens because of government protectionism and regulation. Only the super-rich and politically connected farmers benefit from regulation leaving all the poor subsistence farmers scratching at dirt patches. It does hurt family farming in the long run. The only solution is to outlaw political lobbying so that there is always a level playing field.
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS: In terms of quality of life, producing less food – i.e., organic and free range farming – does not lead to better quality food, per se. It just leads to less food that is more expensive.
eightprops: I’d say it’s a little more complicated than that. Not to say you don’t have any valid points. Just that there are always more sides to the story.
I’d suggest reading Guns, Germs, and Steel for starters on how developing nations/industrialized nations came to be, and how this has influenced modern day agriculture.
Again, I’m not saying you don’t have any valid points, just that it’s a bit over-simplified to say that “organic and free range is the equivalent of poverty.”
See, the thing is I don’t have a problem with organic farming, per se. I have a problem with the uneducated liberals not realizing there is a trade off to be made between industrialization and eco-friendly farming. This was already mentioned before.
“Gun’s, Germs, and Steel” is a flawed book. Industrialized nations came to be for the simple fact that capitalism was able to take root in the Christianized world; whereas the rest of the world still, for the most part, holds fast to their quaint communal belief systems. Trading always makes people better off which is why I laugh at some of the economically ignorant things I was “forced” to respond to in your post.[/quote]
“Gun’s, Germs, and Steel” is a flawed book. Industrialized nations came to be for the simple fact that capitalism was able to take root in the Christianized world…"
Pretty clear that you didn’t read the book.
Aside from that, my point is that nothing is as simple as you make it out to be. That’s not to say that you are wrong. Your points are absolutely valid, albeit a little black and white. It’s just that in a world influenced by sociological, economic, political, environmental, and hitorical factors, it’s impossible to say that “x” or “y” is THE reason “z” is going to cause poverty or starvation.
