Chirac warns of 'African flood'

On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:12:40 +0200, Marc Lurie
wrote:

On 17 Jul 2006 03:46:35 -0700, "Hooverphonic"
wrote:

When conflict used to arise a tribe would move on to greener pastures.
These days that is impossible without causing conflict, because
somebody else is already living there.

This is an extremely simplistic view. And while it may have held some
merit at some stage, the fact of the matter is that people aren't
nomadic any more.

There have been no significant numbers of nomads anywhere on earth for
the past two hundred years, so your point is completely moot.

And most Africans have been settled farmers for many centuries. They
may have occasionally moved to greener pastures for various reasons,
but most of them were never nomads, at least for the last 1000 years
or so.
--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

"B Vaughan" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:12:40 +0200, Marc Lurie
wrote:
On 17 Jul 2006 03:46:35 -0700, "Hooverphonic"
wrote:

When conflict used to arise a tribe would move on to greener pastures.
These days that is impossible without causing conflict, because
somebody else is already living there.

This is an extremely simplistic view. And while it may have held some
merit at some stage, the fact of the matter is that people aren't
nomadic any more.

There have been no significant numbers of nomads anywhere on earth for
the past two hundred years, so your point is completely moot.

And most Africans have been settled farmers for many centuries. They
may have occasionally moved to greener pastures for various reasons,
but most of them were never nomads, at least for the last 1000 years
or so.
--

But, back in the '50s there were some Chevrolets that were Nomads. KM
--
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On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 10:51:19 +0200, B Vaughan wrote:

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 18:31:29 +0100, Whitedog
wrote:

Neither Hong Kong nor Singapore nor many other nice and wealthy
places can produce enough food for its inhabitants.

Both Hong Kong and Singapore are very small regions and can import
food from nearby. It's quite another thing for a whole continent not
to be self-succient in food production.

Barbara,

there is a political problem called fortress mentality.
Politicians like to invoke it, because they want farmer votes,
not because it makes sense to produce your own food. They tend
to protect farmers against all economical sense.

Hans-Georg

--
No mail, please.

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:54:12 +0100, Whitedog wrote:

Buy staples? They shouldn't have to *buy* them, they should be
producing them! The successful population of the African continent
didn't come about as a result of business but of smaller scale local
agriculture, practised by people who learned how to farm their land
according to local conditions.

That's not true for much of Africa, where the soil is poor,
where it rains only once or twice a year, and where goat herding
finishes off whatever vegetation remained.

Tell me what you do to get your food. Then tell me why you want
to lead your lifestyle, but want Africans to lead a different
lifestyle that would be akin to you ploughing your garden
year-in, year-out.

Hans-Georg

--
No mail, please.

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 20:50:19 +0200, NightRaven wrote:

That's a fairy-tale, wealth and prosperity Always comes at the
expense of someone else, otherwhise where would the wealth come
from in the first place ?

Every economics student can refute that out of hand after his
first semester. It is complete nonsense, not worth discussing.

Hans-Georg

--
No mail, please.

On 17 Jul 2006 02:10:06 -0700, Hooverphonic wrote:

Jim Ley wrote:

Wealth is not a zero-sum game.

on the stock market it is

Exactly on the stock market it isn't, very obviously for anybody
who knows just the bare minimum about it.

Hans-Georg

--
No mail, please.

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 21:27:38 +0200, B Vaughan wrote:

On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 16:15:28 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

B Vaughan writes:

They won't support family planning programs that include abortion.

Why not? Abortion is a legitimate and effective form of birth control
when other methods fail.

The refusal was an easy way for Republicans to get Right to Life
votes. They never seriously try to stop abortions in the US, because
they would lose as many votes as they would gain. However, if they cut
off funds to Planned Parenthood International because they're
including abortion in their family planning packages, it's a win-win
vote getter. The Right to Choose people can't be bothered agitating
about it, when they're so tied up trying to keep abortion legal in the
US. And Republicans get to tell their constituents that they voted to
stop abortions. And they also get plaudits from those who oppose all
foreign aid.

Barbara,

thanks for the lucid explanation. I hadn't seen all the aspects,
but they become obvious as you explain them.

Hans-Georg

--
No mail, please.

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 22:10:49 +0200, Hans-Georg Michna
wrote:

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:54:12 +0100, Whitedog wrote:

Buy staples? They shouldn't have to *buy* them, they should be
producing them! The successful population of the African continent
didn't come about as a result of business but of smaller scale local
agriculture, practised by people who learned how to farm their land
according to local conditions.

That's not true for much of Africa, where the soil is poor,
where it rains only once or twice a year, and where goat herding
finishes off whatever vegetation remained.

Unsustainable farming methods (and overgrazing is one example) have
created this problem, the solution shouldn't be to add to and
perpetuate this mistake by relying on transporting food. Sure there's
a political element to this too, a govenment who prevents local people
grazing their animals in an area designated as a "park" or game
reserve will create localised overgrazing. Traditional farming and
food sourcing methods were developed by people who experienced
variable weather conditions, these people survived long before food
transport existed, in Africa, In Europe, in the Arctic, Australia
etc..

Maybe it's too late to reverse the damage, in the past before
political borders existed, a drought would have made people migrate to
somewhere they could live. Clearly this is no longer possible, they'd
be stopped at gunpoint at a border and herded into refugee camps.

Tell me what you do to get your food. Then tell me why you want
to lead your lifestyle, but want Africans to lead a different
lifestyle that would be akin to you ploughing your garden
year-in, year-out.

I'm a farmer, I work for my food and *with* it. Perhaps I'm using
different methods but we try to buy and eat locally produced food for
a number of reasons, the main reason being that it's crazy and long
term unsustainable to import (or transport for huge distances) food we
can produce ourselves.

Hardly anyone is Europe is in touch with the production of their food
so they have forgotten what it means to produce it, to tend crops and
animals, to have losses due to diseases and pests.

Food comes from a shop, who cares where it came from before that?


That's modern life but maybe not "progress".


--
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`-,,, ,_ ;'~U' Nearer my shed, to thee.
_,-' ,'`-__; '--.
(_/'~~ ''''(;

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 06:48:35 +0100, Whitedog wrote:

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 22:10:49 +0200, Hans-Georg Michna
wrote:

Tell me what you do to get your food. Then tell me why you want
to lead your lifestyle, but want Africans to lead a different
lifestyle that would be akin to you ploughing your garden
year-in, year-out.

I'm a farmer, I work for my food and *with* it.

OK, in that case my rhetorical question didn't work. But, to
take an example of a farmer in the US, that's one of the 3% of
the population that work the fields. The other 97% buy their
food from wherever they can get it.

This is actually the basis of our industrialized lifestyle. The
percentage of farmers is an indication of the wealth of the
society---the lower, the better.

Why should that not be valid in Africa? Why should people only
live where they can grow food?

My answer is, they shouldn't. Food should be grown where it can
grow best, and people should live where they can live best
(including the cost of obtaining food in the calculation). Any
other proposal is uneconomical, in my view.

The idea that people in Africa should grow their food in
unsuitable areas and, if necessary, reduce their population
density to achieve that, sounds preposterous and also arrogant
to me.

Hans-Georg

--
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On Fri, 28 Jul 2006 16:56:19 +0200, Hans-Georg Michna
wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 06:48:35 +0100, Whitedog wrote:

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 22:10:49 +0200, Hans-Georg Michna
wrote:

Tell me what you do to get your food. Then tell me why you want
to lead your lifestyle, but want Africans to lead a different
lifestyle that would be akin to you ploughing your garden
year-in, year-out.

I'm a farmer, I work for my food and *with* it.

OK, in that case my rhetorical question didn't work. But, to
take an example of a farmer in the US, that's one of the 3% of
the population that work the fields. The other 97% buy their
food from wherever they can get it.

This is actually the basis of our industrialized lifestyle. The
percentage of farmers is an indication of the wealth of the
society---the lower, the better.

It's only "better" if you measure the success of a society by its
increased waste and inefficiency.The USA is not, perhaps, the best
example of a model for efficiency and restraint in its utilisation of
resources!
In many eyes industrialised farming is not a sustainable method of
producing food, by its nature it damages, depletes and destroys in
order to feed the non agricultural masses "cheaply".

But don't take my word for it, there's plenty of information out
there. Look at the energy imbalance in US agriculture and I quote

"It is estimated that the average U.S. farm uses a total of 3 calories
of fossil energy to produce each calorie of food energy."

http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/energy/


Why should that not be valid in Africa? Why should people only
live where they can grow food?

Well, they *should* but they don't. Sometimes they can't for reasons
beyond their control. That doesn't make it right though, just because
it's the way we've learned to live.

My answer is, they shouldn't. Food should be grown where it can
grow best, and people should live where they can live best
(including the cost of obtaining food in the calculation). Any
other proposal is uneconomical, in my view.

The economics are the key, agreed. I just think that what seems the
natural way is just another way of saying "I was brought up to live
like this so it must be right"

The idea that people in Africa should grow their food in
unsuitable areas and, if necessary, reduce their population
density to achieve that, sounds preposterous and also arrogant
to me.

Would you argue that any population should stay in an area which is
experiencing a 100 year long drought just because we can transport
food and water to them? It's absurd but is seen as the only solution
by many.

I didn't suggest that Africans should grow food in unsuitable areas, I
simply expressed a wish that African resources weren't being expended
to produce food for Europeans. In my opinion it's crazy to do this and
the few jobs it creates are little compensation for the damage caused.
If food can be grown efficiently in one area then why fly it several
thousand miles to a place where food is already abundant?
In addition, there's a good chance that valuable local water will have
been diverted into growing these crops. The people who take jobs in
these businesses are probably contributing to the demise of their own
local agriculture (and something harder to measure, community wisdom)
if they only knew it. It's sad and it's not neccessary but some will
see it as progress.
If there are areas of Africa that have exceeded the carrying capacity
of the land then there's a problem that can only be temporarily
disguised by mechanised transport of food.

So am I arguing that it's better for an African villager to plough
with an ox than a tractor? Damn right I am, we should be learning how
to do it here too, the oil won't last for ever and biodiesel is a
laughable idea, there's a negative energy balance in producing it.

Do I think it's good for rural Africans to forget how to farm
according to their own individual local conditions? No. That's a skill
learned over generations which will be lost in a few.
Do I think the rural populations should desert the villages and seek
work in the cities?
The shanty towns are full of educated, hopeful people who want to live
the better life they've been told about.
I hope they'll get a bit closer to their dream but I doubt they'll
ever really benefit from the income that foreign food exports
generate.

Ah, it's complicated and there's no easy answers sadly.
--
.--~~,__
:-....,-------`~~'._.'
`-,,, ,_ ;'~U' Nearer my shed, to thee.
_,-' ,'`-__; '--.
(_/'~~ ''''(;