…a recent pest and disease epidemic that has ravaged Asian rice fields and sharply curtailed the supply of the main food staple of half of the world’s population.
Putting institutionalized corruption to bed is a task this generation ignored to the peril of the earth. I do not forgive my fellow citizens because the writing on the wall is more than fifty years old.
It’s difficult these days; not hopeless, difficult; not dangerous, difficult.
For example, by AlexRosin, A Tough Row To Hoe:
The idea was to reduce hunger through the magic of economies of scale. The plan was to implement a new approach to farming across the developing world.
And so, starting in 1945, the U.S.-backed Green Revolution did to farming what the Model T did to auto production.
It subsidized peasants in developing countries [ed: subsidized elites!] to abandon centuries-old, small-scale farming techniques that used diverse, locally adapted crops and instead plant vast fields of single crops specially bred for high yields. And, since the new monocrops were often less suited to local conditions, farmers were also encouraged to use plenty of pesticides and fertilizers to improve harvests.
Playing a major role in the Green Revolution was the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), set up in the Philippines in 1960 by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations with the collaboration of the Philippine government.
Now, almost half a century later, the Green Revolution’s key innovations – chemicals and monocultures – are being blamed for a recent pest and disease epidemic that has ravaged Asian rice fields and sharply curtailed the supply of the main food staple of half of the world’s population.
The shortages have helped to send rice prices into orbit and sparked unrest across the developing world.
We are not short of opportunity and tasks.