This week, we discussed agriculture in crisis and agribusiness. The key goal of this week was to investigate past causes of agricultural crises, and understand if we’re in the midst of, or about to be in the midst of, other agricultural crises.We talked about the Irish potato famine caused by poor farming techniques (monoculture and lack of biodiversity) and ultimately a microorganism from Mexico. The famine was exacerbated by a colonial power with a harsh feudal system and no social safety net. We moved onto the Dust Bowl where once again poor farming techniques (this time over-plowing and ecological mismatch) were exacerbated by economic hardship, this time in the form of The Great Depression. By the time we talk about foodborne disease, the message becomes quite clear: we have so many times failed to treat our agricultural practices with the carefulness they deserve.According to the writing and interview of an evolutionary biologist named Rob Wallace, not only have we endured agricultural crises in our past, but we are currently in one right now—COVID-19.  According to him, endlessly needy capitalists have been pushing nature to its limits in their never-ending quest for more and more sources of economic growth and exploitation. He argues Ebola started basically the same way, due to “neoliberalism’s structural shifts,” like the increasing commodification of the forest, bringing more and more exotic animals into the economic chain. This view of the failure of neoliberal agroeconomic reforms is echoed by Professor Ong when she criticizes the World Bank and other development organizations for engaging in sugar coated destruction: “sustainable intensification” and “climate smart agriculture,” the latter of which Ong calls “Malthus meets climate change and together they give agribusiness a hug.”According to Wallace, the solution is to “choose an ecosocialism that mends the metabolic rift between ecology and economy” and to “realize a creaturely communism far from the Soviet model.”I know the problem runs deep. As Professor Ong taught in her lecture on food labels, even food labels are misleading and end up preserving agribusiness’ unsustainable techniques. The labels should be easing ethical consumption and the positive supply-side incentives that go along with it.Problems persist in the Global South, too, with 9 in 10 Punjabi farmers living in debt. But even though the problems run deep, I am not as discouraged as Dr. Wallace and Professor Ong.The increased capital flows to Africa that Dr. Wallace claims in this podcast caused Ebola are ultimately good things in my opinion. In my opinion, it is increased economic activity and worldwide capital flows that has lifted billions out of poverty, in country after country. Trying to increase crop yields in a sustainable way, or genetically engineering healthier foods, which Professor Ong refers to as Malthusian delusion, also have the potential to be important tools I would think. Malthus was fundamentally wrong because humans aren’t like other species: we can innovate. So let’s innovate! Increased crop productivity (and accompanying yields) make food more affordable for the world’s poor (here’s what the USDA says about them; read the second to last blurb in particular). Though GMOs are more of a band-aid than they are surgery, band-aids can still be useful and GMOs can be too. Ultimately, I believe we must adjust these neoliberal reforms to fit our needs and address existing problem with them—not throw the whole system away in favor of “creaturely communism.”

This week, we covered the use of agriculture in colonial and neocolonial structures, in addition to the use of chemicals in agriculture as pesticide, herbicide, and fertilizer.We began with the Columbian exchange, which undeniably changed the world, if only by enabling pizza. All jokes aside, the Columbian exchange’s improvements (and drawbacks) to our life and diet are immeasurable. We started with the example of rice; despite being indigenously cultivated in all Earth’s landmasses, even this food was subject to the whims of the global economy. Asian rice is growing in importance and popularity in Africa over native rice due to its increased productivity, which makes it more able to feed people living drought-affected regions. That being said, Asian rice is less nutritious and there is a less diverse variety being used in Africa than there is in native rice.Do we lose something here, in the replacement of native African rice for Asian rice? It is difficult to say, as increased productivity is good but decreased nutrition is obviously unfortunate, especially in a region already plagued by nutrition issues. But, Asian rice is by no means being shoved down African throats, as farmers are choosing to produce it, but farmers don’t always have full agency, as proven by the story of frequent farmer suicides especially in India.In addition, we spoke of the benefits and many drawbacks of banana trade in Costa Rica before moving on to a discussion of war and agriculture. In reading and listening to this, I was certainly shocked by the many connections between wartime “innovation” in the hopes of harming your enemies and the goals of increasing crop productivity to cheaply and effectively feed your population. The historical connections are not doubtful. Agent Orange was used to deforest Vietnam and now the same chemicals are used to kill weeds. The same gasses used to kill insects were used to kill soldiers. However, does the historical bonding of war and farm-cleaning indict the latter? In my view, probably not. We should be extremely careful when designing pesticides and herbicides to examine things like biomagnification (in the case of DDT) or horrifying birth defects (in the case of 2,4-D). But that doesn’t mean that we should give up the quest for cheaper, more available food that pest-preventing can create. I just think we should try to come up with more sustainable ways of doing so, instead of viewing all encroachments into nature as negative.In our discussion groups, we talked about the role of consumers (in my view, minimal to nonexistent), the role of governments (in my view, great), and the role of scientists (in my view, just to be incorruptible) in future sustainable innovation or past failures. Lastly, we talked about reparations, which I’m certainly in favor of, so long as it only goes to those who lived through the disasters (link is to Coleman Hughes, a writer on race who testified against reparations for slavery but for reparations for things like redlining and Jim Crow). In my opinion, having a dead grandparent be affected by something should not brand me as a victim nor make someone eligible for a cash transfer. I had relatives killed, raped, and effectively expelled from Eastern Europe. Were I to receive a check declaring my individual victimhood, I think I would be rightly appalled.Hope you enjoyed my weekly blog post. Comment below if you have any thoughts!

This week, we covered energy, ecology, water, soil, polycultures, and world hunger.In the first of these subtopics, we discussed biofuels, which is what the majority of corn becomes. While biofuels may sound better for the environment (“bio” is in the name, right?), there are serious problems with our overreliance on it. The biggest of these is deforestation, as we chop down more and more carbon-sequestering trees in order to grow plants that eventually become fuel.We also covered different planting and soil systems for their various ecological, hydrological, and economic effects. We talked about various irrigation and water conservation systems, like mulch vs cover cropping vs plastic, in addition to learning about the various soil layers (O, A, E, B, C, R). In the same realm of one letter abbreviations, we learned about N, P, K (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) and the value they have to agriculture. Lastly, we talked about polycultures and their advantages (natural selection, biodiversity, conservation of water) and their disadvantages (mainly, yields).The rest of this blog I’d like to dedicate to world hunger and global poverty. There are not many times in this class where I come in with pre-existing knowledge (I certainly knew nothing about soil layers until this week), but the economics of poverty is one of these rare times. I’m an economics major with a focus in lower-income countries, and I’m currently working with development economist Professor Edmonds to study how coronavirus has affected child labor in the developing world. Most importantly, I think we should talk about the video we watched, which featured the damning claim that we have more than enough food on the planet, and yet people die of hunger, meaning each death is a “murder”. Who is the murderer, according to the video? “Profit maximization,” which the star literally describes as “murderous.”Here are some facts.

1. In the year 2015, 1.1 billion less people lived in extreme poverty than in 1990. This represents a 75% decrease in the share of the population living in extreme poverty (from 36% of the world population in 1990 to 9% of it in 2015). Source
2. In the year 2017, 200 million fewer people lived undernourished than did in 1991. This represents a 50% reduction in the share of population living undernourished (from 20% of the population to 10%). Source
3. From 1990 to 2017, GDP has risen roughly 300% (source).

To proudly pronounce that profit maximization is “murderous,” I would think you must explain why profits skyrocketed while 75% of the share of the population that lived in extreme poverty is now not living in extreme poverty. I do not say this as a “gotcha” or because I think each person living in extreme poverty isn’t a tragedy. Nobody should live in poverty, but to pretend that profit maximization can’t exist in a world where poverty and hunger are being reduced is not only extremely pessimistic, but also extremely wrong.The solution is not to get rid of the evil and somehow-completely-at-fault “profit maximization.” The answer is to align profits with our goals. This is achieved through subsidizing the good and taxing the bad. The best example of this is a carbon tax. We tax carbon usage so that it is baked into the cost of industries. For example, if deforestation is no longer profitable because of the carbon tax, people won’t deforest. If corporations are as profit-hungry as they are painted (which they are), then this will work swimmingly.The “profit-maximizing” system that is at play has been slow, but it has also been effective. Nevertheless, it can be more effective by aligning profits with our goals. To throw the whole system away because food cannot be teleported from one place to another, from ability to need as Marx would say, would be to throw away our progress and to throw away our chances at the poverty-free future we all seek.

This week we covered the biodiversity effects of various growing (or not-growing) techniques as well as the debate between land sparing and land sharing. First, I think we should delve into the topic of why biodiversity is important. Inter-species biodiversity is important because it creates competition which allows for species to better adapt to their environment. Intra-species biodiversity is necessary since variation is a necessary precursor to natural selection; if species are all clones of each other, there will be no “survival of the fittest,” instead just a survival of all (at a specific number) or a survival of none. The last reason biodiversity is important is probably the most honest: it is nice to look at, and it also makes us feel that we are not too harmful to the rest of Earth’s creations.On a smaller scale, biodiversity can be important for farmers because it stabilizes their profits. If potato prices fall, but you also sell tomatoes, then the impact on your farm is less. That being said, biodiversity can pose some problems, one of them being pests. This problem can’t usually be solved by more biodiversity, though, as the story of the cane toad importation tells us. Alternatively, “unnatural” pest control can involve toxic chemicals or other soil-ruining techniques. Other “unnatural” pest controls like genetic modification aren’t very popular because they threaten many people’s conception of humans as part of nature, not apart or above from it, and without the rights to impose itself onto it. I fundamentally disagree with this view; humans are different from nature, at least in one key way: we can dramatically change nature to fit us. This profoundly rare ability isn’t some scary evolutionary defect that we should run away from because it might involve using different methods than our ancestors. Our ancestors used different methods from their ancestors when they farmed in the first place (as opposed to the hunter-gathering species humans evolved to be).It is true that humans have no “right” to use nature for our success. But nothing has any “rights” as far as the Earth is concerned. If we simply took the view that the only thing that mattered was the health of the Earth, climate change wouldn’t actually be so scary–after all, it only really threatens humans’ existence on our planet. Climate change doesn’t threaten the planet itself; the planet was much warmer at other times and it fared quite nicely (just ask the dinosaurs!).On this logical basis, that we have a right to adapt the Earth for our needs, we should also discuss the debate on land sharing vs land sparing. I mention this logical basis on account of my belief that we cannot frame this debate only as what is helpful to “the Earth” or “other species” (at least the ones that we don’t much like–like mosquitoes). As I said, both the Earth and species diversity will be around long after us, just as they were around long before us.Assessing the human costs and benefits, the land-sparing argument goes as follows: we can maintain large, pristine, impressive, and even species-harboring tracts of untouched land if we allow some plots of land to be farmed intensively with productivity in mind. The land sharing argument disagrees with many premises in that: a) it’s not clear intensive agriculture is more productive and b) it’s not possible to have separate lands because of spillage (of genes, of seeds, of chemicals, etc). The land sharers come to the conclusion that it would just be better to have farmland that is integrated with ecology into a true and complex ecosystem.The land sharers’ first point (a) is measurable and falsifiable. Are there agroecological systems that are more productive for less cost (both at scale) than intensified agriculture? My understanding is no, although I am open-minded to seeing one. The land sharers’ second point (b) is also measurable and falsifiable. The claim that leakage is inevitable can be merely disproved by pointing to a correctly land-spared place, right? To that, I would point to national parks, which to me seem like a perfect way to falsify the second point (b). National parks are not perfect spots of biodiversity, but I do not think most national park visitors think there isn’t enough biodiversity there. Their opinions are what matters; I think it is hard to find a purpose for nature outside how much we enjoy it, as I said. Anecdotal evidence is just that (and I wish I had polling data of national parks visitors to cite instead), but I have been to several national parks and I have left with only amazement, not worry that I had seen insufficient biodiversity.This is why I count myself among the land-sparers. I think it is the system that humans benefit most from, and I’m not sure I see another legitimate way of measuring the two systems.

I lived my first 18 years in Los Angeles. My family traveled outside of the country about once a year, usually to remote places; they figured that a 13 year old boy (me at the time) who loved sports and video games would not be able to appreciate the Sistine Chapel or the Louvre. They were right of course. But as a little boy traveling to places he had never heard of, I developed an appreciation of nature and small towns that would quickly become the source of loving ridicule from my family. You can imagine how this led me to Dartmouth.In May, my Chicagoan girlfriend and I were trying to find a way to spend time together. Having spent 2 months apart, we were clinging on to the notion that sophomore summer would unite us. When it became clear it would not, we began brainstorming. My girlfriend had fond memories of trips she and her family took to a small island in Lake Michigan called Washington Island to support her dad’s appearances in the island’s local orchestral music festival. It is around 4 hours from Milwaukee and 1.5 hours from Green Bay, its nearest city. She Instagram dm’d her favorite fast food restaurant on the island to ask if they were hiring, as a true shot in the dark. They were hiring and they hired her, telling her she could start whenever she wanted. I had resigned to taking online school, hoping to knock out a couple requirements before the seemingly inevitable return to Dartmouth in the following year, so it didn’t matter much where I lived. Plus, I had saved up some money from the spring working as a Dartmouth-funded intern at the International Rescue Commitee so I could afford to pay half the rent for a dirt cheap duplex.We moved here on June 1st, and it has been really lovely since. I feel very connected with nature, and we go on hikes once a week and to the beach another few times a week. The island is tiny, with one total grocery store and one total non-grocery store servicing the 700 people that live here (and the tourists that show up on weekends). I have learned a lot about nature, small town life, myself and so much more here this summer, and I am so glad to have gone and to have had parents who let me go.Cities are incredible places, and they have been for most of history. They are cultural centers and they put great minds together in incredibly productive ways both economically and socially. We would be basically nowhere without them. However, people in cities cannot turn their back on small towns, on rural areas, and on nature. Doing so would hurt not just the residents of these towns, but it would also hurt us. Cities are profoundly important, but most everybody needs a connection to the rural, the small town, and the natural world. Take it from me, a tremendously lucky college kid living in the middle of nowhere.