On Sat, 29 Oct 1994, Brian A. Luke wrote:
>
> > Brian Luke wrote:
> > If the agribusiness person is making money from the land, by growing crops,
> > then obviously he or she is giving consumers what they want. What is wrong
> > with that?
>
> If the consumers are affluent North Americans who want coffee and
> chocolate and cocaine and beef and exotic fruits year round, then the
> problem is that we get these commodities ultimately by forcing people
> off the land they've traditionally used for their own subsistence
> needs.
>
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would remind people of
the environmental destruction which results from wars caused by the
displacment of people off of their land so that agribusiness can grow
these luxury crops. If you don't think this is a serious problem, I
recommend the book Bitter Harvest -- an excellent account of the way the
CIA overthrew the elected (land-reform oriented) government in Guatemala
in 1954. This was done at the instigation of the Dulles brothers -- high
powered government and cabinet officials who just happened to own large
shares of United Fruit, a major landholder in Guatemala interested in
expanding its banana production. I think anyone who paid any attention
to world affairs in the 1980's and right up through today is well aware
of just how bitter the harvest from that little adventure was for the
people of Guatemala. As for the environmental impact -- I saw a 60
Minutes piece years ago on the production of bananas in Central America,
the amount of pesticides, etc used. I have eaten very, very few bananas
since then!
> I am paid for doing my job, just about enough to provide for the
> subsistence needs (granted, somewhat inflated in the U.S.) of myself
> and my two children. That is a completely different economic process
> than the accumulation of profits, which is what drives agribusiness.
Absolutely! We must not forget the role of large scale capital
accumulation in the food production system that we have developed.
> Every dollar made is made
> > because the business is feeding people. You can't grow worthless crops and
> > make money.
>
> On the contrary, it's rather difficult to grow WORTHWHILE crops
> and maximize profits. Huge portions of agribusiness are devoted to
> arguably worthless crops such as opium, tobacco, grains for fattening
> cattle, etc. These crops have little to do with meeting important
> human needs and a lot to do with accumulating profits.
Right on!
> > If the law required that any agricultural activity, large or small, family or
> > corporate, had to show that it was not damaging the environment, and had to
> > leave the land as fertile as it was before, then the size of the farming entity
> > would be irrelevant to the environmental issue,
>
> The last clause doesn't follow. Regardless of what the law says or
> doesn't say, certain kinds of large farming systems (such as
> confining tens of thousands of farm animals in a shed, which
> dangerously accumulates manure) are necessarily damaging to the
> environment.
Absolutely! Also, the law doesn't say that and I, for one, think we
should be very wary of any solution which is based primarily on the
promulgation of government regulations. These are usually neither
enforceable nor enforced. Under the current system of regulatory
negotiation -- in which the regulated parties get to participate in the
development of the guidelines under which they will be governed -- the
regulations will be fairly weak and enforcement will not be very likely.
Big government cannot save us from this one -- people have to change
their behaviours and attitudes.
Jayne
