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Re: British Beef Situation



In article <443@vishwa.win-uk.net>, David Scott Libby
<dslibby@vishwa.win-uk.net> writes
>
>>>of course the conventional economists don't like it because these
>>>activities don't show up in the GDP, and the agri-businesses don't like
>>>it because they feel threatened by it, 
>>
>>Eh? Absolutely not I would have thought. The effect is miniscule. If
>>farmers thought about this dispassionately then they would encourage it.
>>The reduced production would result in reduced supply and thus increased
>>prices. Funny old world, ain't it?
>
>Do you hold shares in ICI by any chance?

No, are you a member of the green party, the soil association .....?


>Oz, 
>
>If you have a sense of humility, you won't mind me pointing out
>that you don't KNOW (caps in place of italics) that the organic way
>can't feed the world. Simply because we haven't tried and failed
>yet. It's only just the beginning and there's a lot more to be done.

Well, you see, we did try it. It's how people farmed world wide before
WW2. Now just cast your mind back to the population then, the population
now, the world food production then and now.

Now it's, to a rough approximation, a mere matter of subtraction. Of
course there has been an increase in 'agricultural' land. Like the
Amazon basin, the far east, the foothills of the Himalayas .....
However a fair bit of that is unsustainable due to steep slopes and high
rainfall resulting in, after a while, no soil. Although I have to admit
that rubber plantations and palm oil seem to handle slopes well, I
wouldn't think that you would want *too* much tropical rainforest
destroyed to feed the starving population. Would you?


>Nature will bring the world population into balance in time so we
>really oughtn't to bother too much about. 

Don't kid yourself. You are going to see major ecological disaster as 
all wild areas are stripped and burned and turned into agricultural land 
for food. OK, it may only last a few years, but it feeds a peasant and 
his family then, and his several million compatriots. You can write off 
the African wildlife too, whilst you are at it. When your family and 
children are starving and you have a rifle, it's tough on elephants. 
When there's millions starving ......

I think I would prefer modern agriculture, and keep the rain forest and
African wildlife, myself.

>We will be much better
>placed doing the best we can to feed ourselves and those local to us
>in a sensible "organic" way. 

Try it. It's easy to sell all you have, buy a farm and try to live 
entirely from it. What's more you will still be able to get cheap 
healthcare, steel, spares etc etc from the majority of the population 
who live conventionally. It shouldn't be a problem for you then.

>I'm curious as to your vision of the long-term future. Do you really
>feel that we can carry on eating biocides and get away with it?

Considering that plants contain large quantities of naturally produced,
and frequently rather hazardous insecticides and worse to stave off
those who would eat them, we have been doing it from the dawn of time.
These toxins are not tested for safety and are in truly vast quantity
compared to the man-made ones left as residues. So, keep up the spraying
and keep up the food production. Millions that way are kept from dying
of starvation (death definite) this way. Those in the wealth West who
worry about these things can afford organic, so why should they worry?

>Whatever we do (that Mother Nature doesn't like) will be paid for.

Nature doesn't give a hoot. Try working alongside her for a few years.
She is red in tooth and claw, and totally indifferent to anythings
survival. Blow it, and die, is her motto. So it's best to nudge her
gently in your direction.  :-)

>Why give up before we've even started, seems a bit defeatist
>(bordering on negative) to me. 

Eh? I'm not giving up.

>Haven't you got any hope?

Plenty. I just don't expect miracles, I live with the world as it is and
hope for progress. World population has every chance of falling in the
next couple of centuries, and slowing down drastically in the next few
decades. Given the existing populations you can't really hope for much
better unless you enjoy mass death amoungst our fellow humans. So we
gotta *try* to feed the world for a while yet. I actually don't see
billions dying of disease and starvation as a good thing, they are all
humans and deserve better.

>Are you perhaps an existentialist? 

No, a realist.

>Is your signature something you believe in or is it merely meant to
>be funny. 

You can take it how you like. I think it has some of both, most people
smile but see the point. 

------------------------------- 
'Oz     "When I knew little, all was certain. The more I learnt,
        the less sure I was. Is this the uncertainty principle?"



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