The Global Food Crisis

[Imperial Overlord]

The age 35 life expectancy includes those who die to young to have kids and skews the numbers. Two of the big motivations to have kids in unindustrialized country is the additional labor and income they provide and the role of children in supporting their aged parents in a society with little or no social safety net. How do you convince a farmer not to have a lot of kids when some of them will die young and he'll need the others to support him in his old age?

[Kanastrous]

ok, my very bad sense of humour has just kicked in on this thread, and now suggest except for that Jacobs/Kretzfelt (yeah I know spellinmg is atrocious), problem, Tom Swift may indeed have an ecquitable solution to that problem...

Jonathan Swift?

"A Modest Proposal?"

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

So what type of aid would you recommend, or how would you go about it?

For example, would it be wrong for someone to join the peace corps to donate time to help provide medical assistance or malarial nets in places that aren't industrialized?

Is there a way to balance both types of aid? Infrastructural and palliative?

[The Yosemite Bear]

ok, my very bad sense of humour has just kicked in on this thread, and now suggest except for that Jacobs/Kretzfelt (yeah I know spellinmg is atrocious), problem, Tom Swift may indeed have an ecquitable solution to that problem...

Jonathan Swift?

"A Modest Proposal?"

yeah, that one, I keep getting him and Thomas Paine confused calling Paine "Johnathan Paine" etc...

[discordian_saint]

Therefore all "aid" which does not industrialize nations is bullshit

So does that mean the world would be ok with us just keeping the aid money? God forbid we exploit a country by giving it money or food of all things.

In 2006 we gave 3.2 billion dollars in aid to:

Columbia 558m
Jordan 461m
Pakistan 698m
Peru 133m
Indonesia 158m
Kenya 213m
Bolivia 122m
Ukraine 115m
India 94m
Haiti 163m
Russia 52m
Ethiopia 145m
West Bank/ Gaza 150m
Liberia 89m
Bangladesh 49m
Bosnia 51m

The US offered yield-boosted genetically modified seed, or the finished food grown from it, to Zambia, Europe, India, China, etc and all we got was the finger from their governments.

In all fairness we also gave 4.5billion to Israel and Egypt, but that was primarily for military hardware purchases and not "aid" per se. More like a Visa Card for the US Miltary Industrial Complex.

[Eulogy]

So what type of aid would you recommend, or how would you go about it?

It's like others have said: handouts make the givers feel good, but ultimately makes the problem worse.

The real way to help out impoverished nations is to give them three things - stability, education, and infrastructure. You're not feeding them, you're helping them feed themselves.

[K. A. Pital]

The age 35 life expectancy includes those who die to young to have kids and skews the numbers.

Indeed, but the same remains true for higher life expectancies, doesn't it?

Two of the big motivations to have kids in unindustrialized country is the additional labor and income they provide and the role of children in supporting their aged parents in a society with little or no social safety net. How do you convince a farmer not to have a lot of kids when some of them will die young and he'll need the others to support him in his old age?

Exactly the problem, and it's exacerbated by the high death rate of children in unindustrialized nations. How can you have just one kid and be sure he'lll support you, when statistically he's like a coin flip destined to die or live?

So what type of aid would you recommend, or how would you go about it?

Industrial plants to provide employment to people, industrialize agriculture to free manpower for the industrial age. It's pretty simple, many countries went through this and the scheme is pretty universal.

However, that doesn't mean medical relief to AIDS/malaria stricken regions, or famine relief (the UN Food Programme) are to be scrapped - I'm just saying that without improving industrial infrastructure in a nation, most of the relief we do does not have a lasting effect.

[K. A. Pital]

So does that mean the world would be ok with us just keeping the aid money?

That means you're a fucking idiot and you have demonstrated it twice in this thread already, dick.

The temporary relief that is provided by just giving food or money to people does not make their own infrastructure industrialized, does not improve their social situation either, because that is very much connected. Which means this aid really is temporary.

Instead of just doing this type of aid, how about combining relief for emergency with, say, moving several hundred industrial plants into a nation gratis? That sounds way better as aid than just food.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

That makes sense. Just giving one type of aid strikes me as a type of band-aid agreement or permanent welfare. I wonder, though, what the equation would look like based on modern concerns of resource depletion, industrial pollution/climate change, and peak oil. Might that not put a damper on the utility or possibility of third world industrialization?

[PainRack]

has anyone else mentioned that this is the "corrective" powers of the markets stepping in and its self-healing mechanism?

oooh:D not to mention that higher prices will increase production!!!!!


Obviously, free market enthusiasts don't realise that correction= major changes in lifestyle and productivity.

[Imperial Overlord]

The age 35 life expectancy includes those who die to young to have kids and skews the numbers.

Indeed, but the same remains true for higher life expectancies, doesn't it?

Sure it does, but the impact on having 35% of the people as opposed to 5% of the people dying before age 20 has a much more dramatic effect on the life expectancy numbers. Third World farmers aren't dying en mass before they reach 40. If so they wouldn't need an army of kids to care for them in their old age. They're often reaching their 50s or 60s and then dying.

[Kanastrous]

...and somehow or other, at the same time, here's what's up in our neck of the woods...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23358982/

I guess life is tough all over.

[K. A. Pital]

Might that not put a damper on the utility or possibility of third world industrialization?

It might. But if the First World actually transits to newer and less damaging to the environment, technologies, it just needs the balls to actually sell those technologies, with full documentation and right to use, to less developmed nations.

Yes, that means losing "competitive advantage", "techno gap" and all other market speak.

But that would be a moral right IMHO.

Also, lot of pollution comes from primitive industrialization crudely imitating the XIX-early XX century coal run plants. Now you can start off a cleaner source, say, gas or even uranium. If the First World would actively promote that it would make good results.

Also, car culture spreading frm the US into undeveloped nations is a disease too. Not a cure. Not a "miracle wealth wohooo". It's a blight and it's the problem which will be corrcted, forcibly, by the energy crisis.

[HemlockGrey]

Industrial plants to provide employment to people, industrialize agriculture to free manpower for the industrial age. It's pretty simple, many countries went through this and the scheme is pretty universal.

Just throwing money at the problem won't solve anything unless the fundamental nature of most of the African states is changed. Just as an example off the top of my head, one of my TA's used to monitor the distribution of tractors in Kenya that had been given as by the Chinese government. Some of them went to political allies of the local boss...some just went to some government official's private farm. The corruption in Africa is and always has been one of the biggest obstacles to solving the continent's food problems.

[K. A. Pital]

As for Africa, I agree that rampant corruption will not allow for much progress unless the allocation of industrial assets is fully controlled by foreign administrations.

But there are other poor nations in Asia and Latin America that would benefit from such programs, not to mention their position makes it easier to observe and administer progress made in industrial development of those nations.

For example, intervention in Africa failed to produce viable industrialized states, but intervention in SEA progressed far more along that road.

[Stuart Mackey]

has anyone else mentioned that this is the "corrective" powers of the markets stepping in and its self-healing mechanism?

oooh:D not to mention that higher prices will increase production!!!!!


Obviously, free market enthusiasts don't realise that correction= major changes in lifestyle and productivity.

Yeah, I did.

[His Divine Shadow]

No mass starvations yet just the threat of them. They still cannot import the amount they need which puts them in the "on the edge" category. India's agricultural problem is similar to China, they are using water at a sickening rate for industry and farming without any real hope on the horizon of it changing.

If ever a country needed to invest in desalination plants it's India. Nuclear ones and lots of them.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Brazil has halted all exports and Thailand is drawing up plans to follow. There are now reports that British retailers are imposing restrictions on sales to individual customers to curb hoarding.

Neither Anglo-Saxon nation is considered Third World last I checked.

[The Spartan]

I heard on the radio this morning that Walmart and Sam's Club will be restricting how much rice customers can buy. They said the limit is 4 bags but I'm assuming that's the larger commercial size ones. I don't remember the numbers they quoted but apparently the price of rice has more than doubled, in fact, nearly tripled, in the past year.

[Broomstick]

Yes, both Costco and Sam's Club are restricting rice sales. Apparently they have some means to track purchases electronically (I don't shop there, so I'm not familiar with their systems) so a customer can't go store to store to stock up - the limit is the limit, period. It isn't so much there is a shortage here now, it's to prevent people from hoarding, which can precipitate a shortage.

Rice has doubled - I eat a lot of rice (for an American) and I'm definitely paying more. I usually buy long-grain brown rice, not sure exactly how that particular one will be affected as some types are more impacted than others.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Yes, both Costco and Sam's Club are restricting rice sales. Apparently they have some means to track purchases electronically (I don't shop there, so I'm not familiar with their systems) so a customer can't go store to store to stock up - the limit is the limit, period.

That's easy. They're both membership-only stores, and they scan your membership card whenever you make a purchase there.

[Master of Ossus]

Yes, both Costco and Sam's Club are restricting rice sales. Apparently they have some means to track purchases electronically (I don't shop there, so I'm not familiar with their systems) so a customer can't go store to store to stock up - the limit is the limit, period. It isn't so much there is a shortage here now, it's to prevent people from hoarding, which can precipitate a shortage.

Rice has doubled - I eat a lot of rice (for an American) and I'm definitely paying more. I usually buy long-grain brown rice, not sure exactly how that particular one will be affected as some types are more impacted than others.

Long grain brown rice won't be affected at all because that's principally grown in the US, which has had a bumper crop. Only Thai rice and Indian basmati rice are affected, and that's because those countries have placed export bans on those types of rice.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The brown rice tends not to store as well if not frozen, while white Basmati is far easier to store for long periods. So if you were going to hoard and get away with it, you'd want the non-oily stuff.

[Broomstick]

Or a really big freezer....

[cosmicalstorm]

Dosen't Costco and the likes make their money mainly out of memberships more than foodsales?
I could see why they dont want people to empty the shelves in a frenzy.
Although there is a big problem here with the entire biofuel debacle, I think the food rationing talk I've been hearing about lately smells a wee bit of alarmism.