Organic farming, 'the Green Revolution' and Norman Borlaug

[darkfibre]

The full report, entitled 'Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa', can be downloaded here: http://www.unep.ch/etb/publications/insideCBTF_OA_2008.pdf (2mb pdf)

Or here: http://www.unep-unctad.org/cbtf/publications/UNCTAD_DITC_TED_2007_15.pdf (1.1mb - no front cover)


Incidentally, the 'Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems' journal is now available online: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=RAF

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I was poised to post that up last night, was just waiting for a second mention of the Green Revolution. I think this was one of his first ever proper articles - and, i would suggest, an update would be very interesting.

There's a later one called something like 'Technology as a Political Weapon' or something like that, which is sort of an update, but not a recent one.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes, an interesting attempt to use the approach pioneered by Panzieri in The Capitalist Use of Machinery: Marx Versus the Objectivists and Surplus value and planning: notes on the reading of 'Capital' -. Online here

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Heh thanks. in the morning I'll have a look at those. Getting a bit late now ...

 

[darkfibre]

Online here

Cheers - good brainfood.

 

[purves grundy]

But vegetarianism and veganism are pretty close in terms of efficiency of land use.

You could be correct if we're talking industrial scale farming, but the small farms I've seen in Asia are remarkably efficient. They grow mostly rice, with a few vegetables growing at the edge of the paddy fields. Ducks swim in the paddy and eat potentially toxic snails, and one or two pigs and a few chickens scrat around under the house eating all the bits and pieces that have been thrown away. Cereals, vegetables, meat and eggs - perfect. No need for any absolutism, just a continuation of what has worked for millennia.

 

[editor]

Norman Borlaug has just died:

Norman Borlaug, the man known as the father of the Green Revolution in agriculture, has died in the US state of Texas aged 95.

Prof Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for agricultural innovation and the development of high-yield crops.

The Green Revolution helped world food production more than double between 1960 and 1990 with Asia, Africa and Latin America in particular benefiting.

The Nobel Institute said he had helped save hundreds of millions of lives.

Prof Borlaug died late on Saturday evening at his home in Dallas from complications with cancer, said a spokesperson for Texas A&M University, where he had worked.

'A better place'

In the early 1960s Prof Borlaug realised that creating short-stemmed varieties would leave food plants more energy for growing larger heads of grain.

His high-yield, disease-resistant dwarf wheat quickly boosted harvests in Latin America, and his techniques were particularly successful in South Asia, where famine was widespread.

Analysts believe the Green Revolution helped avert a worldwide famine in the late 20th century.

A close friend of Prof Borlaug at Texas A&M, Dr Ed Runge, told Associated Press news agency: "He has probably done more and is known by fewer people than anybody that has done that much... He made the world a better place."

The Nobel prize presentation said Prof Borlaug "more than any other single person of his age... has helped to provide bread for a hungry world".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8253005.stm

*thread title edited