From: Cath Sheard (cath.sheard_at_clear.net.nz)
Date: 04/12/97
Message-Id: <199704112229.KAA11799@fep1-orange.clear.net.nz> From: "Cath Sheard" <cath.sheard_at_clear.net.nz> Subject: North Korea Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 22:31:31 +1200
It's so hard to imagine subsisting on 5 oz of rice a day, when you've had
meat and veg for tea, and half a bottle of wine.
I was talking to a farmer friend last night about maize crops here in New
Zealand. High yield maize needs a lot of (expensive) inputs to produce and
then they turn it to silage to feed cattle - so we can have mince and steak
- if they altered the seed stock to produce maize for flour etc it would
feed untold times more people. But I can't see the restaurants doing a
roaring trade in maize flour pancakes ...
I'm a full time university student, extramural so I don't get to talk to
other students about stuff that comes up, which makes the internet great.
One of the papers I'm doing this year is 'Development Issues and the Third
World'. Patrick said about the food crisis in North Korea. That really
scares me - our readings so far suggest high yield 'green revolution' crops
have 'saved' Asian rice-dependent subsistence farmers. I realise that what
we read is very selective but I got the honest impression that green rev
high yield had failed only in rain-fed marginal areas where the people need
much more complex, risk-aversive techniques.
Are the 'experts' ignoring a new problem? Apart from the on-going crisis in
marginal areas - is there a new one developing in areas where the Green Rev
had seemed to be a success? I wonder too about the environmental impact of
high yield crops given their increased need for inputs like fertilizer and
insecticides - are they sustainable - or merely averting the crisis for
another future generation to cope with.
I'd like to hear more about your ideas for assisting the Third World -
there is so much knowledge about that if only it could be all put together
things might start to change.
Here's to planning for a better world ...
Cath