WI: Green Revolution Spreads to Africa

kernals12

Banned
Norman Borlaug is not a well known man but he is said to have saved 1 billion people. The Iowa native developed new breeds of wheat and spread them throughout South America and India with assistance from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. Yields increased dramatically, an area of forest the size of California was spared from being cut down for farmland, farmers saw increased income, and a ton of people were saved from famine. And yet the Green Revolution is not universally praised. Some claim that the new types of wheat were bad for the environment by requiring increased use of pesticides, ignoring the huge number of trees saved from deforestation. Other claim that the increased productivity and resulting displacement of farmers into urbanization is a bad thing, these people apparantly not realizing how economic progress works. The most laughable claim is that the green revolution was a form of colonialism that had westerners "impose" their methods of farming and destroy the old way of life, these people apparantly thinking the third world should be nothing more than a giant living museum where the miseries of agricultural life are preserved for eternity.
Whatever the merits of the claims, the uproar caused funding to be cut in the 70s right as Borlaug was planning to take his miracle wheat to Africa.
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As a result, while Asia and Latin America have vastly improved their farm productivity, it has barely increased in Sub-Saharan Africa. So what if the environmentalists were ignored?
 
The most laughable claim is that the green revolution was a form of colonialism that had westerners "impose" their methods of farming and destroy the old way of life, these people apparantly thinking the third world should be nothing more than a giant living museum where the miseries of agricultural life are preserved for eternity.

This hits home so hard.... I've met FAR too many people in Myanmar (where I currently live and work) who think that way…

To answer your question, the benefits would be difficult to isolate. Of course standard of living would improve, better nutrition would lead to lower infant mortality and generally a healthier and well developed (mentally and physically) populace. Steady incomes from commercial farming (on a small scale) would help families invest in education for their children or open a side business for extra income. Greater incomes might lead to greater tax revenues and hence more effective public goods. In general it may make life in Africa a lot more bearable for the average African. However, one thing might not necessarily follow another. Increased incomes might not lead to greater investment in education/business for families or greater tax revenues for the state. Even if the state had greater tax revenues they might not spend it well. Would a political culture of corruption and cronyism necessarily be ameliorated by better agriculture? Would it affect state stability and the prevalence of intrastate warfare? Would the average farmer even enjoy the fruits of his labour or will it be confiscated by roving bandits and/or warlords. Certainly much to think about.
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kernals12

Banned
This hits home so hard.... I've met FAR too many people in Myanmar (where I currently live and work) who think that way…

To answer your question, the benefits would be difficult to isolate. Of course standard of living would improve, better nutrition would lead to lower infant mortality and generally a healthier and well developed (mentally and physically) populace. Steady incomes from commercial farming (on a small scale) would help families invest in education for their children or open a side business for extra income. Greater incomes might lead to greater tax revenues and hence more effective public goods. In general it may make life in Africa a lot more bearable for the average African. However, one thing might not necessarily follow another. Increased incomes might not lead to greater investment in education/business for families or greater tax revenues for the state. Even if the state had greater tax revenues they might not spend it well. Would a political culture of corruption and cronyism necessarily be ameliorated by better agriculture? Would it affect state stability and the prevalence of intrastate warfare? Would the average farmer even enjoy the fruits of his labour or will it be confiscated by roving bandits and/or warlords. Certainly much to think about.
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Looking at Latin America, the answer is a hard no. But who cares? As long as people aren't starving.
 
I was unaware there were unused "traditional" breeding methods to improve yields in the African climate, you astound me! I've heard the recent fight starting on similar lines about GMOs being introduced, which is certainly a more contentious thing to do* than introduce new, traditionally bred strains. I'm curious why the GMO solution is being tried if the other solution is just sitting there?

The broad social impacts of moving away from subsistence agriculture are well known: increased wealth, increased displacement, improved educational attainment, lower birth rates, and increased political engagement. Movement to the cities can cause problems that we shouldn't dismiss. You can say the benefits make up for the costs, but those costs are real.

I'm also curious as to whether we're just talking about higher yields on existing arable land or new strains that make formerly marginal land productive. The latter could produce a variety of negative environmental effects to go along with the positive social effects.


*Whatever our opinions of GMOs, we must admit they are highly contentious.
 

kernals12

Banned
I was unaware there were unused "traditional" breeding methods to improve yields in the African climate, you astound me! I've heard the recent fight starting on similar lines about GMOs being introduced, which is certainly a more contentious thing to do* than introduce new, traditionally bred strains. I'm curious why the GMO solution is being tried if the other solution is just sitting there?

The broad social impacts of moving away from subsistence agriculture are well known: increased wealth, increased displacement, improved educational attainment, lower birth rates, and increased political engagement. Movement to the cities can cause problems that we shouldn't dismiss. You can say the benefits make up for the costs, but those costs are real.

I'm also curious as to whether we're just talking about higher yields on existing arable land or new strains that make formerly marginal land productive. The latter could produce a variety of negative environmental effects to go along with the positive social effects.


*Whatever our opinions of GMOs, we must admit they are highly contentious.
The costs are so miniscule compared to the benefits that they can be ignored. The subsistence agriculture life is not sunshine and lollipops, it's a living hell where people spend almost all their time sleeping or working to produce barely enough food to feed their families and where most kids don't survive to adulthood.
 
One factor you're overlooking here is the financial-credit balance impact; mass adoption of the Green Revolution methods in a region would require the farmers to put up a fairly large capital investment (especially relative to their economic position pre-adoption), which has to come from somewhere. This not only exasperates the problem of having agricultural labor displaced by the drop in the labor intensity of your region's primary industry (Since the Green Revolution has sucked up all the local capital, meaning there isen't much left to start other ventures in the near future that could employ these people), but it throws the balance sheet of lenders completely out of whack as the vast majority of their assets are now in one basket, so to speak. That makes their bussiness EXTREMELY swingy, so if you were to see the scenario you propose there's a good chance that one or two bad years could lead to complete collapses in local monetary systems; at least until they get more broadly tied into the global system of credit and start generating enough income that outside investors would be willing to buy up the assets at competitive interest rates.

That's not even to mention the fact that you've just flooded the local market with whatever the local produce is, and building the required infastructure/connections to get it out to a broader market can take quite a while. That's not to say that its underdesirable in the long run (and with a bit of luck to avoid substandard harvests in the early years so as not to lose your investments by being unable to cover your loans or finding your local economy slipping into depression by being thrown out of balance) but that efforts would need to be made to amelerate the short-medium term consequences and avoid traditional backlash and potential social breakdown.
 
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kernals12

Banned
One factor you're overlooking here is the financial-credit balance impact; mass adoption of the Green Revolution methods in a region would require the farmers to put up a fairly large capital investment (especially relative to their economic position pre-adoption), which has to come from somewhere. This not only exasperates the problem of having agricultural labor displaced by the drop in the labor intensity of your region's primary industry (Since the Green Revolution has sucked up all the local capital, meaning there isen't much left to start other ventures in the near future that could employ these people), but it throws the balance sheet of lenders completely out of whack as the vast majority of their assets are now in one basket, so to speak. That makes their bussiness EXTREMELY swingy, so if you were to see the scenario you propose there's a good chance that one or two bad years could lead to complete collapses in local monetary systems; at least until they get more broadly tied into the global system of credit and start generating enough income that outside investors would be willing to buy up the assets at competitive interest rates.

That's not even to mention the fact that you've just flooded the local market with whatever the local produce is, and building the required infastructure/connections to get it out to a broader market can take quite a while.
Did India and Latin America have this type of apocalypse thanks to the green revolution? Remember, they were backed by the large assets of the Ford and Rockefeller foundations.
 
Did India and Latin America have this type of apocalypse thanks to the green revolution? Remember, they were backed by the large assets of the Ford and Rockefeller foundations.

India and Latin America were already DEEPLY embedded in the global commodity-crop export and credit markets prior to their adoption of those techniques. Sub-Saharan Africa isen't exactly in the same situation, being far more economically isolated and infrastructural-economically underdeveloped.

That's not to say that its underdesirable in the long run (and with a bit of luck to avoid substandard harvests in the early years so as not to lose your investments by being unable to cover your loans or finding your local economy slipping into depression by being thrown out of balance) but that efforts would need to be made to amelerate the short-medium term consequences and avoid traditional backlash and potential social breakdown. It's not a straight case of more wheat=better life immediately.
 
The costs are so miniscule compared to the benefits that they can be ignored. The subsistence agriculture life is not sunshine and lollipops, it's a living hell where people spend almost all their time sleeping or working to produce barely enough food to feed their families and where most kids don't survive to adulthood.

I'm not advocating subsistence agriculture, but you're bulldozing past some real and present social problems. They're, as it were, *better* problems to have (up a level on the pyramid of needs) but the story of moving away from subsistence is the story of tackling these new problems, not everyone sitting around feeling great about not dying. People might be happier if they worked like that, but we don't.

You do overturn an existing social order, largely to the good but never something that happens without violence or tragedy. You move people to under-prepared cities, meaning an almost certain spread of slums and a host of new ailments (albeit more survivable than starving to death). You likely increase international migration, if outlets are available. To combat these problems you've got richer societies and a more educated populace. You also have that lower birthrate, which helps down the line as urban quality of life improves (less pressure to expand, slower growth of slums, and so on).

We've seen what the move beyond subsistence looks like in the most developed country in Sub-Saharan Africa (South Africa) and it would be absurd to say its problems can be ignored. True, there are many political reasons for the extent of those problems, but the living habits of the populace are a primary factor. And South Africa has more resources than most African countries to cope with these rising issues.

This is a recipe for an unsettled 80s and 90s. Given we're talking about dozens of individual countries in many climate zones, we're likely to see a fairly wide range of outcomes based on which crops are doing best where.

If, for example, you can increase yields in a place like Namibia, with its relatively good government, relatively diverse economy, and already low population, I can imagine it shooting up to living standards at least in line with South Africa, if not higher. Whereas agricultural success in a country like Zimbabwe, with land consolidation under a political elite, you're probably going to create a migrant crisis or political unrest. There's no opportunity OFF the land, and "wasted" (for all intents and purposes) labor is one way to keep a restive populace busy.
 

kernals12

Banned
India and Latin America were already DEEPLY embedded in the global commodity-crop export and credit markets prior to their adoption of those techniques. Sub-Saharan Africa isen't exactly in the same situation, being far more economically isolated and infrastructural-economically underdeveloped.

That's not to say that its underdesirable in the long run (and with a bit of luck to avoid substandard harvests in the early years so as not to lose your investments by being unable to cover your loans or finding your local economy slipping into depression by being thrown out of balance) but that efforts would need to be made to amelerate the short-medium term consequences and avoid traditional backlash and potential social breakdown. It's not a straight case of more wheat=better life immediately.
The reason Africa is so underdeveloped is because of low farm productivity
 

kernals12

Banned
That's one reason, yes. But that dosent change the facts that trying to develop too much too fast can end up leading into a nation crashing uncontrolled into a wall.
China? South Korea? Japan? The evidence suggests the opposite, faster growth makes people happier. It's the rate of change, not levels, that matters.
 
It seems to me that economic improvements generally lead to a greater openness, in politics and culture. The sub Saharan nation’s around South Africa, have adopted modern development methods while skipping the visible not viable industrialization of the 70’s.
 
China? South Korea? Japan? The evidence suggests the opposite, faster growth makes people happier. It's the rate of change, not levels, that matters.

All three of those examples were fairly industrialized nations with a lot of human capital and cash available to afford the venture.
 
Maybe Japan, but most certainly not South Korea or China.

... have you READ anything about how contentious, violent, and start-stop the development of China was? And how the worst periods (Like the attempt at the Great Leap Forward) were those where the State tried to rush that development? Same with Japan; the civil unrest that country faced as a result of the Meji wracked the country for decades and required harsh repression by the central government against reactionaries and major forgein support from nations like Great Britain in order to be successful.
 
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