Environmentalism Reconsidered - Agriculture the realities of scale
“It took some 10,000 years to expand food production
to the current level of about 5 billion tons per year. By 2050, we will likely
need to nearly double current crop production again.” Norman
Borlaug received a Noble prize for his contribution to the green revolution. He
is probably the most deserving recipient of a Noble Prize of any, as modern
agriculture has saved more lives than any other human endeavour. He helped to
father the modern agriculture complex that supports humanity today.
When one listens to many in the environmental
movement, modern agriculture instead of being lauded as humanity’s greatest
achievement is demonized. While modern agriculture has negative impacts and there are elements that need remediation, it is on the whole a laudable human endeavour.
Agriculture is an example of how human intervention can augment natural
processes to create a more productive ecosystem. Agriculture is an integral
part of the environment that has taken natural systems, enhanced them and fed
millions who would otherwise have been subject to starvation and all the resulting
scourge that accompanies starvation.
In reviewing literature from organizations such as
Greenpeace and other’s, I find them advocating “small farms” for the world’s
poor to grow their own food. They are advocating subsistence agriculture as the
solution to world poverty. Extending the means to someone to simply subsist in
the name of the environment is cruel at least and slow-motion genocide at
worst. The land allocated to subsistence agriculture exacerbates the hunger and
poverty that exists, as it fragments the land base into small portions unable
to access the scale that provides for the efficiencies that have driven the green
revolution and all the benefit that has accrued from it. In terms of providing
food, it is better to retire people trapped in subsistence agriculture,
provide them with the food they require and distribute via market process
increased production from the application of modern agriculture taking place at
scales which generate inherently superior productivity. The environment is
better served and the population as a whole is better
fed.
The same romanticism that resides in the minds of
sentimental preservationists, that has them seeing the world bounded by limits
and nature as being fragile, has them viewing the bucolic rural setting with
mindless nostalgia. I share the appreciation with of the evening sun’s long
shadow cast across rolling hills with the red barn and the gentle twitter of
happy children at play in the backyard. Having been born on a farm where my family
worked together, I often yearn to retreat to that very setting. I know, however,
that the new family farm has evolved it an agro enterprise and that new
structure is what is providing the production necessary to supply 6 billion
mouths. In addition to just providing food, the agro complex is delivering food
to North Americans at approximately 10% of disposable income, contributing to
the overall economy by leaving funds for discretional spending in the hands of
other families. The family farm is an important accruement to the world’s
economy, a family farm that profits the family on the farm as opposed to the
family farm that indentures families to a life of subsistence. When people
extend subsistence to the third world as a solution, all the while lapping up
first-world amenities, amenities lavish and accepted in almost apathy, it is
offensive. It is apparent that in their pursuit of environmental
“sustainability”, they are seemingly content to adopt a policy that would have
all people reside in a state of unnecessary subsistence.
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