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Re: China and Food (was Re: Ecological Economics and Entropy)
sync@inforamp.net (J McGinnis) writes:
>>According to the FAO Web page, China grew 45 million tons of
>>potatoes in 1995, which was the largest potato production in the
>>world.
>>The Chinese yield per hectare on potatoes was 1/2 that of the US and
>>1/3 that of the UK, indicating that the Chinese can get a lot more
>>potatoes if they treat their peasants better.
>You have a knack for ignoring the point. Whatever they are growing,
>they are not growing on US or UK cropland.
Traditionally potatos in China have been grown on marginal land. The
introduction of the potato meant that a lot of hill sides in the south
of China could be used for food production and as they probably caused
a large part of the massive population increases in the Ming and early
Qing periods. So you have a point here to some extent. Potatos have not
been grown on the same sort of land as they have been in the West. They
are grown on mountain sides too steep to terrace for rice paddy. That is
asuming there has been no change in tradtional cropping practises.
>Attempts to match these
>yields are what is causing large areas of land to be rendered useless
>by salinization due to over-irrigation and continuing depletion of
>non-renewable aquifers, among other things.
I would like a source for this claim though. Potatos don't like dry
climates. They have always been mostly grown in the South and above
all the South-West. Places where average rain fall is measured in
feet rather than inches. The chances of Guizhou ever having a problem
with salinization due to over-irrigation or that they would need to
use aquifers is amusing.
Joseph
--
"Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall inherit the Earth"
- President Bill Clinton
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