F.A. Farm

Here is a link to yesterday's article in The New York Times on agro-imperialism. Unfortunately, this is a trend that is gathering steam. The lead example is Saudi Arabia, who had started a program of intensive wheat cultivation in their own country from 1980-1999, using tremendous amounts of irrigation. During that time they became the world's sixth-largest wheat exporter. However, when environmentalists suggested the Saudis were draining their underground aquifers at an unsustainable rate, they actually took heed (unlike the US for instance, which is still draining the Oglalla aquifer at unsustainable levels for wheat irrigation, from South Dakota to Texas). The Saudis new gamble is to buy/lease land in Africa and set up capital-intensive agriculture that is heavily dependent on irrigation, mechanized equipment, and chemical fertilizers (sound familiar?). Other countries are following suit, including China.

One problem the article does not mention is the historical climate/geographical pattern of Africa in relation to other areas of the world. Nearly the whole continent of Africa has been historically dependent on either herding or shifting cultivation (i.e. horticulture) rather than varying degrees of intensive cultivation (i.e. agriculture). One way to parse this is to think of the cultivation continuum, where horticulture stands at one end and is characterized by low-labor inputs on shifting plots. On the other end is agriculture, with high-labor inputs on permanent plots. Industrial agriculture substitues petroleum inputs for the high-labor inputs that formerly depended on slaves - hence petroleum as the "energy slave." This idea of a historical/climate/geographic pattern of shifting cultivation helps explain why the Green Revolution was applicable to Mexico, India, the Phillipines and other areas of the world, but not applicable to Africa.

The upshot is that Saudi Arabia and other countries are taking a big gamble in thinking that their massive amounts of capital can EASILY translate into more food. I think it is more likely they will fail AND since they are one of the principle buyers of American-made F-16's and other weaponry, they will end up destabilizing Africa. Then who will bail out the Saudis? Who do you think?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/magazine/22land-t.html?_r=1&t...