RE: [pf] Fork in the evolution road

by Vicki Madden

21 December 2000 14:35 UTC

>
>Agriculture accounts for at least 70% of this water use. "Long-term
>productivity [in food production] wis threatened by increasing water
>scarcity and soil degradation," writes the World Resources Institute in
>"Freshwater Systems," c. 2000.

Water is critical around the world. I am somewhat skeptical about the 70
percent figure in the United States, anyway, where we have built huge
cities in the desert which are growing fast. Also monolithic agriculture
where we grow thousands of acres of one thing makes it hard to really know
your land and all the microclimates on your land, some of which are wetter
than others, so you just have to soak it all.

But in terms of agricuture, I have just started reading a book called Foods
Frontier (Foods should have an apostrophe but somehow my key caps are
screwed up so I cannot find my symbols. sorry.) by Richard Manning. He
starts by talking about the Green Revolution and how it averted or severely
reduced an anticipated worldwide hunger crisis. But in facing the needs of
the future he quotes Timothy Reeves, who is Director of the International
Center for the Improvement of Wheat and Maize, as saying about the heavy
reliance on high inputs of water, capital, chemical fertilizers and
pesticides that model of agriculture involves, "In feeding ourselves, are
we starving our descendents?"

That is a great question. I tend to think that individual farmers feeding
themselves and their communities is the model, but I am really only talking
about the United States since that is all I know.

I was inspired to read this book by this discussion. Thank you, David, for
making me realize that I am operating mostly on vague intuitions rather
than facts. Not that I do not value vague intuitions, because I do, but it
makes it hard to explain to others what I think. Also this book is
recommended on the back cover by diverse people from John Robbins to Per
Pinstrup Andersen, director of the International Food Policy Research
Institution to Wes Jackson, one of my heroes.

Vicki