Warren Buffett's Son Is Super-Wrong About Africa

[xchrom]

http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/08/howard-buffett-wrong-about-africa

My post on the organic-farming surge in Gaza got me thinking about ag-development policy—and how what's happening in occupied Palestine goes against the grain, so to speak, of most efforts to bolster farming is distressed areas.

Responding to immediate needs for food in a place where water is scarce, agrichemicals are hard to come by, and trade is severely limited, aid agencies and local policymakers in Gaza are urging farmers to grow food for themselves and their neighbors to eat using water-efficient, low-input techniques. And what they're growing isn't industrial crops like corn and soy, which need to be subjected to heavy processing before they can be eaten, but rather nutrient-dense, ready-to-consume fruit, vegetables, and fish.

How different is this setup from the norm? An example recently crossed my desk in the form of this Huffington Post item by Howard Buffett, son of gazillionaire Warren. Now, Buffet the younger is not your standard trust fund baby. According to his bio, he owns and operates a 1,240-acre corn-and-soy farm in Illinois and manages another 400-acre farm in Nebraska. His farming efforts have netted him ample federal crop subsidies over the years. In the early 1990s, he worked as an executive and board member for grain-trading and processing giant Archer Daniels Midland. He recently joined the board of directors at Coca-Cola.

[shireen]

1. one thing i wonder about ... why the overwhelming emphasis on grains?

Yes, carbs are important. But the real value of agriculture lies in crop diversity. Sustainable farming. It can be done, tailored for local climate conditions. For dry areas, there are intensive farming methods like hydroponics that conserve and recycle water efficiently -- Cornell University has done some incredible work in this area.

It can be done. Just as soon as the political bullshit stops (local and international), and people start organizing to support each other instead of fight each other.

Until then, we must help the survivors with food aid ... without them, there is no hope.

[xchrom]

2. Grains are easy to transport?

All in all I agree w/ your perspective.

[jwirr]

3. It is what we should have been doing all along with Africa. A friend

from Nigeria borrowed me his book from there. It talked about what the industrialization did to farming in that country. Before corporations moved the factories into the cities most family were self-sufficient in that they lived on a small portion of land and raised their own food. When the jobs in the city beckoned they sold their land (usually to a foreign corporation) and headed for the city. When they got there they found that thousands had already come ahead of them and any jobs were already gone. Now they had no place to go so they were forced to join the poor in the cities with little hope of ever recovering.