LQD: The NAFTA flu | 46 comments (46 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

People were starving to death in the midst of agriculturally productive land.

This can be due to at least three factors:

1.) Too much of the available land is devoted to cash crops for export and the proceeds are retained by elites, leaving the poor with neither land on which to grow or money with which to buy food.

2.) There is not enough land to support the existing population even if all the land is devoted to food.

3.) The population is surviving on food crops grown in commons areas of marginal agricultural value and the most nutritious of these food crops is struck by a blight or drought. This was the case in Ireland with the potato blight.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri May 1st, 2009 at 01:22:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: The NAFTA flu (4.00 / 4)

actually in Ireland I believe point (1) was a huge contributor: the best land was reserved for cash-cropping for staples exported to England, iirc. Ireland was operated as a colony of England, with English landlords supervising hacienda agriculture and the indigenous (so to speak) Irish dispossessed and shuffled off onto the worst, most marginal land.

the potato (a New World crop brought back by the colonisers whose journeys were in part funded by the super-profits obtained by disposession and Enclosure) was touted as the solution to the "Irish problem" -- land too poor to support wheat/beef (high prestige) farming would support potatoes (which when mixed with dairy form a remarkably nutritious diet)... anyway, the history of the Irish famine is too long and complicated for a drive-by post but colonial cash-cropping was definitely a big part of the big picture. someone must have more recent reading in the history of the Troubles than mine, and can fill in the gaps?

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Fri May 1st, 2009 at 01:41:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: The NAFTA flu (none / 1)

actually in Ireland I believe point (1) was a huge contributor: the best land was reserved for cash-cropping for staples exported to England, iirc. Ireland was operated as a colony of England, with English landlords supervising hacienda agriculture and the indigenous (so to speak) Irish dispossessed and shuffled off onto the worst, most marginal land.

That is what I thought I had said in my point 3. :-)

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri May 1st, 2009 at 05:48:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: The NAFTA flu (4.00 / 5)

sorry I somehow thought it was a choice of 1, 2, or 3... reading in haste. usually the cash-crop scenario involves the works: peasant farmers are displaced from the good lands and forced to work very marginal soils; monocrops encourage epidemic blights and pest population booms; hacienda monocropping reduces soil fertility rendering even "good" lands exhausted and unproductive. and so on.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Fri May 1st, 2009 at 06:39:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: The NAFTA flu (4.00 / 2)

And I need to be more clear in my comments. :-)

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat May 2nd, 2009 at 01:27:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LQD: The NAFTA flu (none / 0)

Diamond writes it was #2 in Rwanda.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Fri May 1st, 2009 at 03:14:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

LQD: The NAFTA flu | 46 comments (46 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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