Friday, March 28, 2008
Why won't there be a "green revolution" in Africa?
Because European lefties have persuaded African governments that their people are better off dead from starvation than alive for having eaten GM foods. Even Jimmy Carter supports GM foods for Africa, which says something about how jaw-droppingly stupid these policies are.
Here's the tough question that the world very much needs to settle: To what extent ought the rich countries of the world act without regard to the sovereign rights of the world's poorest countries when the corrupt fools who run them actually obstruct attempts to save the lives of their people? If rich governments should act against sovereign rights (presumably by force if necessary) in order to rescue people, should there be a difference in how we treat governments that obstruct aid for malign reasons and those that are simply duped by political fashion?
It seems to me that if we are unable or willing to answer these questions, we should stop fretting about Darfur, Rwanda, and other such circles of hell.
18 Comments:
By 
D.E. Cloutier, at
Fri Mar 28, 09:14:00 PM:
You can help people after a disaster, but you can't protect people against themselves.
In the 880s, Notker the Stammerer (Monk of St. Gall) wrote in "The Life of Charlemagne":
"There came to him also envoys form the King of the Africans, bringing a Marmorian lion and a Numidian bear, with Spanish iron and Tyrian purple, and other noteworthy products of those regions. The most munificent Charles knew that the king and all the inhabitants of Africa were oppressed by constant poverty; and so, not only on this occasion but all through his life, he made them presents of the wealth of Europe, corn and wine and oil, and gave them liberal support; and thus he kept them constantly loyal and obedient to himself, and received from them a considerable tribute."
That was long before Crusades to free the Holy Land from Muslim rule and long before the European colonalism of the 15th-20th centuries.
By 
, at
Fri Mar 28, 10:15:00 PM:
This isn't just a matter of GM foods versus non-GM foods. It is also a matter of African tribes and how they interact.
Zimbabwe isn't starving and encountering hyperinflation because of GM foods. It is because of bad government. When you take the farms away from farmers and give them to people who don't know to farm, you will run out of food. Years ago the Chinese tried following US deep cultiviation methods and didn't do things quite right. Instead of turning several inches of soil, the Chinese turned feet of soil and starved themselves when nothing would grow because the subsoil was on top.
In Africa as in other third world areas, it is important to grow things without a great deal of high-tech influence. GM crops must be planted in just the right manner. The fertilizer and pesticides must be applied exactly in the proper manner or the crop will be destroyed. If the GM specific fertilizer or pesticide drifts onto other non-GM plants it will kill them.
Just a thought.
Dave
By GreenmanTim, at
Fri Mar 28, 10:17:00 PM:
The refusal to accept US food aid is inherently political, and 2002 was a year when American actions had the world's attention. This article does not, however, tell us much about whether Africa can or will experience the benefits of a green revolution. It implies that African decision-makers do not understand the trade-offs between concerns about environmental impacts and public health and well-being. That is certainly not my experience. I can tell you that DDT is used widely for Malaria control in Subsaharan Africa, and large hydropower projects have priority over endemic species and the sacred places of indigenous people. Whatever else they may be, those are not the decisions of African elites besotted with northern leftie sensibilities.
By , at
Sat Mar 29, 12:45:00 AM:
Actually, I really don't care if the whole continent of Africa goes belly up. They have really explained what happens with a tribal ruler of a certain sect will do to the others if they rule. Africa (The Mother of us all) has shown what we have seen for centuries. The Majority rules, except in the Euro-centric lands, where the liberals have been the ultimate Surrender Monkeys for Diversity.
By , at
Sat Mar 29, 01:05:00 AM:
Lay the blame on the eco wacko zero populationists fanatics like PAUL EHRLICH and the other deep ecology radicals they want humans to become extinct becuase of all the green garbage they have been tuaght by other green extremists
By opit, at
Sat Mar 29, 01:49:00 AM:
I was thinking about unintended consequences and how to explain that many times 'modern' agricultural practices are slo-mo disaster. Breeding from a limited stock means you can pretty well guarantee extinction of favoured types when Mother Nature shows her nasty side. Corporate farming certainly made a mess of Central and South America way back in the 1940's ! And I saw a piece blaming
http://www.burtsbees.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ContentView?contentPageId=531&catalogId=10051&storeId=10001&langId=-1 on GM crops and/or chemicals.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. You guys don't sound very conservative to me.
By opit, at
Sat Mar 29, 01:50:00 AM:
Sorry. That was colony collapse disorder ( bees ).
By TigerHawk, at
Sat Mar 29, 07:19:00 AM:
Good comments on this thread; GT, I defer to your actual knowledge and experience in particular, in lieu of my own mere wind-breaking.
By davod, at
Sat Mar 29, 07:54:00 AM:
Tigerhawk - Your response equates to just a new kind of Colonialism or Socialism. A world government would certainly be able to achieve this but do we really want to go there.
The Africans, with some help, are achieving remarkable gains in some areas. One example is mentioned in this NYT article - In Niger, Trees and Crops Turn Back the Desert
The important thing about the Niger experiment and others like it is to note that individual property rights is key to making it work.
Those complaining about genetically modified foods should realise that this is just an extension of what had been achieved over time - Mendel with better technolgy. If it hadn't been for improved yield food strains, and the farming methods now despised, the world would have millions less people.
Millions would have starved in Europe at the end of WWII if it wasn't for US farming techniques. US farms kept the third world, including Africa, from starving for many years.
By , at
Sat Mar 29, 09:40:00 AM:
IIRC, the EU (mainly France) told various destitute African nations that if they allowed GM crops from the US into their countries, they would not be allowed to export the few crops they could to the EU...something about fears that the GM crops would contaminate the EU crops.
This was economic disaster for these African nations, since the only source of hard currency was their exports. So, no GM foods allowed, people starved, and the benevolent EU allowed the minimal imports (which, coincidentally, didn't threaten their agricultural subsidies to their farmers).
Note: These US GM imports were NOT feed grains - they were food grains. They were not intended to be planted (and being GM wouldn't have bred true anyway). But, the EU (France) wanted to stick their finger in the eye of the US, and kill millions of Africans doing it.
Aside from the US feeding most of the world (starting at the end of WWII and continuing today) the US has also made possible whatever minor progresses have been made. And while there are a lot of crops that require careful applications of fertilizers and pesticides, there are other crops the US taxpayers funded, that feed a billion people today.
By authoress, at
Sat Mar 29, 01:09:00 PM:
I think African dictators obstruct aid because they WANT their people starving. The rule (practically) by warlords regimes would not last long if people were lifted from destitution. I think African dictators use PC reasoning as merely an excuse to deny their people assistance. If the enviro-Leftists were not part of the picture, they'd probably try to come up with other more far-fetched excuses for not accepting GM crops.
It's kind of like the homeless beggars who don't want food, but rather just some change. GM crops are useless to the dictators. They'd have to distribute them to the population, and likely see their inflow of international aid dry up. What they want from the West is cash, which they can spend on themselves and their genocidal projects.
African dictators don't want their people to thrive... because they would probably then get rid of the dictators.
By , at
Sat Mar 29, 01:47:00 PM:
While I see nothing wrong with GM foods, don't present them as necessary for a 'green revolution' in Africa. Simply using conventionally improved plants, adequate fertilizer, irrigation, and judicious use of pesticides, Africa could feed 15 billion people.
Poverty and social dysfunction prevents Africa from implementing known solutions, not lack of genetic engineering.
By , at
Sat Mar 29, 02:04:00 PM:
"Simply using conventionally improved plants, adequate fertilizer, irrigation, and judicious use of pesticides, Africa could feed 15 billion people."
Conversely, by using GM plants Africa could feed 15 billion people without the necessity of fertilizer, irrigation and pesticides. You tell me which is more cost effective to a dirt poor African.
By , at
Sat Mar 29, 07:22:00 PM:
Why do we pay any attention to Africa? Seriously: why? From about 1960 on, the continent (yes, I'm including every country) started a downward spiral. It will totally auger in this year, next year, maybe ten years from now. But it will totally implode.
Refusing GM food? Accepting starvation instead? That's sheer ignorance. Verifying there's absolutely no hope.
Write it off. Close the U.S. embassies, clear out. Now.
By GreenmanTim, at
Sun Mar 30, 01:33:00 AM:
"Why do we pay any attention to Africa?" - Anonymous 7:22
Here are an even dozen reasons, in no particular order. Doubtless some of these are less compelling to you than others, and some of you I am certain can suggest more.
1. Coltan (columbite-tantalite). You can't make a mobile phone without it. You find it in 3 billion year old soils, like East Africa's rift valley.
2. Chromium: Without it there is no stainless steel. South Africa and Zimbabwe have 98% of the world's reserves of this mineral.
3. Cobalt (needed for jet engines). More that half the world's reserves come from four African nations (Democratic Republic of Congo, Morroco, Zambia, Botswana).
4. Manganese. The US imports 100% of the Manganese it needs. Without it, no steel. South Africa has massive reserves.
5. Platinum. Again, we have virtually no domestic platinum. South Africa has 73% of the world's reserves.
6. Diamonds, Gold and Bauxite. Africa ranks either 1st or 2nd worldwide for its concentrations of these minerals. Oh, yeah, and then there's the oil, natural gas, uranium, copper...
7. Pandemic disease. Polio had almost been eradicated worldwide in the late 1990s, only the second disease beside smallpox to approach that milestone. Refusal to innoculate children in northern Nigeria for religious /cultural reasons lead to an outbreak that spread across the Sahel and extended to Asia. The global movement of plant and animal material also includes pests and pathogens. Without significant investment in disease control in Africa, we can expect future global pandemics like HIV.
8. China. China is invested in Africa on a massive scale. The US is not even close. All those strategic minerals and other natural resources are going East.
9. Biodiversity. The only continent that maintains its pleistocene megafauna. Millions of Wildebeest. Hundreds of Mountain Gorillas. 698 species of birds recorded in Malawi alone. If you go for that sort of thing.
10. Religion: 316 million muslims (1/2 in subsaharan Africa). 360 million Christians. 84 million animists, too. All speaking 2,000 languages.
11. Alieviating human suffering: More than 500 million living without electricty. 900,000malaria deaths each year(many of which were preventable): 70% of these children under five). 200 million undernourished.
12. Because you don't know Africa, "anonymous 7:22", and what you don't know you can't evaluate. Africa defies simplification. Sorry, but gross generalizations about the character of the second largest continent is really "sheer ignorance."
By , at
Mon Mar 31, 12:12:00 PM:
Of all the world's continents, we have the fewest national resources invested in Africa. All those minerals are and will continue to be available to world markets so long as their extraction and sales make the local despots money. And none of them are so vitally important (like, say, oil) that they warrant our constant monitoring or intervention. We coasted along for more than 40 years when more than half the continent was affiliated with the Soviets; there's no reason to panic about China. So no worries there.
Various humanitarian and environmental causes are all well and good (if you go for that sort of thing) but it's hardly a reason to devote real American power to alleviate them. Which is why we don't. We have other problems to deal with, and so does the rest of the world. Besides, the African nations are known for recklessly squandering what aid they do receive, not to mention their seriously warped views that they use as justification for their continued despotism.
A favorite example, from a web biography of Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa:
"AIDS has hit Africa the hardest of any continent. Gugu Dlamini, one of the first South Africans to announce that she was HIV-positive, was promptly stoned to death in 1998. Mandela ignored the AIDS crisis, but Mbeki has been worse. In 1999, he refused to allow distribution of AZT (a drug that inhibits HIV) to pregnant women and other South Africans suffering from AIDS. Instead, he publicly embraced the scientifically dissident position that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. The drug itself, Mbeki claimed, actually causes AIDS, and shortens rather than extends patients' lives."
You cannot help those who will not help themselves.
By GreenmanTim, at
Mon Mar 31, 12:54:00 PM:
I take your point about warped views, Dawnfire82, but offer another perspective on African despotism. We coasted along during the Cold War with regard to strategic minerals because we supported South Africa under apartheid as a bulwark against communism in the region. And during that period charming folks like Mobutu Sese Seko and Jonas Savimbi were our SOB's, while France had its own proxy puppets.
As for oil, Nigeria, Angola and Equatorial Guinea (which was not a player during the Cold War) are huge producers. Equatorial Guinea produces 420,000 barrels per day (BPD); Angola (OPEC member since December) is approaching 2 million bpd and has some local refining capacity; and Nigeria exceeds that amount even when there are disruptions in supply. None of these countries are models of ethical government, but the fossil fuel potential cannot be ignored. Certainly other players are not ignoring them.
As for despotism and reckless squandering of aid, that state of affairs is not unique to the African continent. I can think of several US State legislatures that fit that description rather handily. ;-)
By , at
Wed Apr 02, 02:16:00 PM:
Tigerhawk: "To what extent ought the rich countries of the world act without regard to the sovereign rights of the world's poorest countries when the corrupt fools who run them actually obstruct attempts to save the lives of their people?"
Sounds like a one-bullet problem to me.
(I wonder what Peter Singer would say about that?) (See also this)
Steve
