Population Security Misery Theorems: [1]: "The Dismal Theorem"- If the only ultimate check on the growth of population is misery, then the population will grow until it is miserable enough to stop its growth.
[2] "The Utterly Dismal Theorem" - This theorem states that any technical improvement can only relieve misery for a while, for so long as misery is the only check on population, the [technical] improvement will enable population to grow, and will soon enable more people to live in misery than before. The final result of [technical] improvements, therefore, is to increase the equilibrium population which is to increase the total sum of human misery.
[3] "The moderately cheerful form of the Dismal Theorem" - Fortunately, it is not too difficult to restate the Dismal Theorem in a moderately cheerful form, which states that if something else, other than misery and starvation, can be found which will keep a prosperous population in check, the population does not have to grow until it is miserable and starves, and it can be stably prosperous.
Until we know more, the Cheerful Theorem remains a question mark. Misery we know will do the trick. This is the only sure-fire automatic method of bringing population to an equilibrium. Other things may do it. The economic analysis I presented earlier indicates that the major priority is a world campaign for the reduction of birth rates. This is more important than any program of foreign aid and investments. Indeed, if it is neglected, all programs of aid and investment will be ultimately self-defeating and will simply increase the amount of human misery.
~ Reflections on Sustainability, Population Growth, and the Environment: Carrying Capacity & Denial of Population Problem ~Today, 6.5 billion humans depend entirely on oil for food, energy, plastics & chemicals. Population growth is on a collision course with the inevitable decline in oil production.
~ The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror, by Free Will Production ~
Is It a Trap?: South African farmers in high demand across Africa
I Luv SA
I Luv SA
'If you control the oil you control the country; if you control the food, you control the population.'
~ Henry Kissinger ~
To give the reader an idea of the energy intensiveness of modern agriculture, production of one kilogram of nitrogen for fertilizer requires the energy equivalent of from 1.4 to 1.8 liters of diesel fuel. This is not considering the natural gas feedstock.
In a very real sense, we are literally eating fossil fuels. However, due to the laws of thermodynamics, there is not a direct correspondence between energy inflow and outflow in agriculture.
Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable. It is damaging the land, draining water supplies and polluting the environment. And all of this requires more and more fossil fuel input to pump irrigation water, to replace nutrients, to provide pest protection, to remediate the environment and simply to hold crop production at a constant. Yet this necessary fossil fuel input is going to crash headlong into declining fossil fuel production.
~ Eating Fossil Fuels, by Dale Allen Pfeiffer ~
Consider the realities of Peak Oil on the future of industrial agriculture..
Then ask yourself 'Is it a Trap?'
Or don't these people know that the entire industry of industrial agriculture relies on cheap fossil fuels?
What will white people do for a bit of black 'appreciation' and 'acceptance'?
How long do these farmers wait to find out the 'appreciation' and 'acceptance' was just another 'Truth and Reconciliation' bulls*t story?
Or is it just an ingenious African-Madoff Ponzi Investment Scheme?
********
South African farmers in high demand across Africa
Ghana Business News May 9, 2009
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
South African farmers are now in high demand across the African continent, ghanabusinessnews.com has learnt.
Information available to ghanabusinessnews.com indicates that a number of African countries are inviting South African farmers to come over to their countries and ply their trade, and Libya is included.
Libyan leader, Muamar Gaddafi is specifically requesting for 80 South African farmers to come over to Libya to farm.
And the Financial Mail has reported that South African farmers are flocking to accept an invitation from the government of the Republic of Congo (Brazaville) to start commercial farming.
Recently ghanabusinessnews.com carried a story about an organization called GHANSA which is working with and encouraging South African farmers to come over to Ghana to do commercial farming, and the story has generated some debate, especially over land issues in the country.
The other countries that are inviting South African farmers are Uganda and Kenya.
In Congo Brazaville for instance, the government has offered free land, exemption from taxes and import duties for five years, and the freedom to repatriate profits to South Africa. The country is also offering the South African farmers the option of retaining the rights to sell the businesses or leave them to their heirs.
According to the reports, the South African farmers in return must establish a commercial farming sector that will ensure food security within five years. Congo Brazaille imports almost all of its food because the country's agriculture sector is severely neglected.The colonial masters of the Congo, France however appears unhappy with the development, according to a South African farmers' co-operative, Agri-Braz.
Its chairman, Andre Botha was quoted as saying "Congo-Brazzaville is a dumping ground for third-grade French food products. The French, Congo-Brazzaville's former colonial masters, are not happy with us. They know what South African farmers can achieve."
As part of the enticement package, Congo Brazzaville has undertaken to help farmers with infrastructure such as roads, telecommunications and railways.
Fertiliser manufacturers and others have expressed interest in the venture, and logistical challenges are being addressed - such as the development of home-schooling packages for children of relocating farmers, Botha has said.
About 94% of Congo-Brazzaville's people live in cities and towns, making it Africa's most urbanised country. "The remaining 6% live in 90% of the country and there is almost no commercial agriculture taking place, despite abundant fertile arable land," according to Botha.
Adding, "there is about 10m ha available in a country that straddles the equator and therefore has two summers. It is humid, hot and wet, better than Winterton in KwaZulu Natal, regarded as the best farming land in South Africa with its average annual rainfall of 1 100 mm. In the Congo it is 1 500 mm on average."
Botha notes that SA's two major maize-growing areas enjoy far less rainfall: the Nigel-Potchefstroom-Vanderbijlpark triangle averages 450 mm-700 mm, and Lichtenburg-Bothaville-Ventersdorp 600 mm-700 mm.
The South African farmers are attracted to this particular offer and others they are considering in Africa because of the acceptance and appreciation they are getting from these countries, which South Africa has failed to offer them.
While South African farmers would not leave the country permanently, they would accept these offers because of the good business opportunities that they offer.
Sources: Farm Land Grab :: Eating Fossil Fuels (PDF:138K)
Africa: Tractored out by “land grabs”?
IRIN (United Nations)
IRIN (United Nations)
11 May 2009
JOHANNESBURG, 11 May 2009 (IRIN) - Rich countries and firms are leasing or buying massive tracts of land in developing nations for the production of food or biofuel.
An area equivalent to Germany’s farmed land is at stake, and tens of billions of dollars on offer.
On the plus side, agro-industrial production could develop underused land, and broaden the world’s food production base while providing much needed resources for poor countries.
But is the land really idle and currently unused? Are small-scale farmers going to be “tractored out” in a murky neo-colonial “land grab”?
Farmers and experts in several African countries know all too well the need for higher food production, but the scale and structure of the deals gives rise to concern on many fronts, according to multiple interviews.
The food and fuel prices hikes of 2007 and 2008 and a steadily growing world population raised the immediate and strategic value of food production.
Food-importing countries that lack land and water but are rich in capital, such as the Gulf States, are initiating deals to produce food in developing countries, where land and water are more abundant and production costs much lower.
Vast tracts of land and huge amounts of money are involved: 15 million to 20 million hectares, almost equivalent to the total area under cultivation in Germany, according to analysts at the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Investment so far adds up to $20 billion to $30 billion, dwarfing foreign aid budgets for agriculture.
Murky?
Joachim von Braun and Ruth Meinzen-Dick of IFPRI point out in a new policy brief that developing countries with large populations, like China, South Korea and India, are seeking similar deals, including growing biofuel crops.
The institute warned that there was a "lack of transparency" in many deals, with the amounts involved "often still murky".
Land is an "emotional issue", said Theo de Jager, deputy president of Agri SA, the South African farmers' association. Some of the deals have already begun to ruffle feathers in developing countries, most of which are highly food insecure, and at least one has led to the overthrow of a government.
An April 2009 policy paper from the German NGO Welt Hunger Hilfe says: “States that are dependent on food imports, in particular, are surrendering more and more land to foreign investors while failing to ensure that conditions improve income and food security for their own population. Agricultural investments are rarely made in such a way that they offer the local population a genuine share of the benefits.” The paper also points out the risks of high-level corruption.
The president of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP), Ajay Vashee, told IRIN "Faced with a growing population, if we do not increase our global food production I can foresee another crisis, maybe in another two years." IFAP, formed in 1946, claims to represent 600 million mostly small-scale farmers, a third of the world's food-growers.
"We are not against the deals, as they will bring in huge amounts of money for agricultural infrastructure development, besides boosting food production globally, but we must also realise that in most developing countries, such as those in Africa, most small-scale farmers have customary rights and face the threat of being forced off their land," said Vashee, who farms in Zambia.
IFPRI has called for a code of conduct to be drawn up, modelled on international business laws to prevent corrupt practices in the context of foreign direct investment.
So what's the deal?
According to von Braun, the arrangements usually involve governments, either directly or through state-owned entities and public-private partnerships, and the land was usually leased or made available through concessions, but was sometimes bought.
"The size and terms of the contract differ widely - some deals do not involve direct land acquisition, but seek to secure food supplies through contract farming [[and investing in]] rural and agricultural infrastructure, including irrigation systems and roads - these are the better deals."
The concept is not new. Von Braun pointed out that China started leasing land for food production in Cuba and Mexico 10 years ago.
However, in its 2008 report on "land grabbing", GRAIN, a Spain-based NGO that promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity, warned that the "very basis on which to build food sovereignty is simply being bartered away" in the deals.
"These lands will be transformed from smallholdings or forests, or whatever they may be, into large industrial estates connected to far-off markets. Farmers will never be real farmers again, job or no job," GRAIN cautioned.
Various Gulf States have struck most of the deals in East Africa, which is facing some of the biggest food shortages globally. IFPRI's von Braun and David Hallam of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) told IRIN it was "too early" to assess the impact of the deals on food security and farmers in the lessor countries.
Unease, resistance and protests
Farming and pastoralist communities in the delta of Kenya's Tana River have reacted strongly to reports of government's intention to lease a chunk of this rich coastal land to Qatar. Kenya is facing huge food shortages and high prices after a third consecutive year of drought.
Mohammed Mbwana, who farms in the area and is an official of the Shungwaya Welfare Association, a local NGO, said the agreement would displace thousands of locals. At least 150,000 families in farming and pastoralist communities depend on the land in question, said to be part of Kenya's biggest wetland.
Tana River County councillors have threatened to go to court and block government's plans to lease the land. The council's vice-chairman, Gure Golo, told IRIN they were opposed to the project because local communities used the delta for produce and livestock farming.
During drought periods, pastoralists from as far as Garissa, the capital of neighbouring North-Eastern Province, and other arid regions, came to the delta in search of pasture and water, he said.
According to media reports, Mozambicans have resisted the settlement of thousands of Chinese agricultural workers on leased land.
In Madagascar, negotiations with the South Korean Daewoo Logistics Corporation to lease 1.3 million hectares to grow maize and oil palms played a role in the political conflict that led to the overthrow of the government earlier this year, the IFPRI brief said.
In Malawi, Chinese investors were allocated land, used by locals for agriculture in the southern town of Balaka, to construct a cotton processing plant. When protests followed, local traditional leaders were taken to neighbouring Zambia to see what the Chinese might deliver in terms of development. When they came back they relented and opted to move to another area "because the Chinese would create jobs for their subjects", a government official told IRIN.
Victor Mhone of the Civil Society Agriculture Network (CISANET), a grouping of individuals and NGOS in Malawi, said: "What we need as a country is to improve on food production, and that can be done if we empower local farmers by giving them the best land for cultivation. Foreign companies are here to make profits and there is little that we can benefit from, whatever they will be growing here."
Sudan, which has received some of the biggest foreign investments in agriculture in Africa, dismissed notions of the emergence of a new form of colonialism.
Abdeldafi Fadlalla Ali, the Federal Agriculture Commissioner at the Sudanese Ministry of Investment, told IRIN that they always ensured local interests were taken care of in the deals - the produce was sold locally and local people "become the highest beneficiaries".
Sudan, Ali said, has 84 million hectares of arable land, of which only 20 percent is under cultivation, and had registered 75 deals worth $3.5 billion in eight years. Almost $930 million of this was already invested. Eight countries, including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, China and India are involved.
Ali reasoned that in the face of limited domestic capital, foreign investment seemed to be a "better strategy" to achieve agricultural targets, and expected that produce from the deals would be exported in future.
Millions of Sudanese require food aid, according to the UN. However, Ali claimed food insecurity was more related to transport and marketing than absolute production shortfalls.
Safeguards
IFPRI recommends transparency, respect for existing land rights, sharing of benefits, environmental sustainability and adherence to national trade policies as key elements to be incorporated in a proposed code of conduct. This could include foreign investors being denied the right to export during an acute national food crisis.
Farmers and think-tanks talk about turning this "opportunity" into a "win-win" situation. While the agriculture sector in most poor countries grapples with the impact of the economic slowdown, deals for arable land continue to prove attractive.
Rwanda recently announced a new programme to identify “unexploited“ arable land for foreign investors. On the other hand, the Republic of Congo announced it would lease 10 million hectares of farmland to individual foreign farmers to boost its food security.
"This is a better option - leasing out land to farmers who will transfer skills to local farmers, boost the country's production, and care about the land," said Agri SA's de Jager. South African farmers have helped improve production in Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and Nigeria, among other countries he said.
But IFAP's Vashee pointed out that farmers cannot bring in the huge investment needed to build or rebuild infrastructure.
IFPRI is working with the African Union to develop guidelines on how to negotiate with foreign investors, which will be presented to African leaders for ratification at a summit in July.
Irin News (United Nations)
