Totalitarian Agriculture the root cause of our problem?

Saruman

Im reading a book called "the story of B" by DANIEL QUINN.
This is a novel, a fictional story about a priest sent to see if someone calling himself B is the antichrist.

Actually this is not what the book is about, its actually the author using a fictional story to get across his ideas of the cause of our problems as a culture and that we are heading for collapse.

Its VERY interesting.. sometimes hard to follow, but i think i agree with a lot of what he is saying.

Zombrex

And ......

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i'm torn between thanking you for the reccomendation and pointing out that there is a literature forum.

oh, I've just done both.

Saruman

Oh yes.. i never finished my post.. sorry..
i know there is a literature forum but i was hoping to hear views from anyone who had read it here...

so has anyone read it?

Im hoping to hear views on this. Basically it says that Totalitarian Agriculture is the basis for our culture, producing more food than we need. This increases our population at a massive rate and actually PROMOTES famine because we overfarm etc etc etc.
There is a lot more to it but thats the basic idea.

Zombrex

Saruman wrote:

Oh yes.. i never finished my post.. sorry..
i know there is a literature forum but i was hoping to hear views from anyone who had read it here...

so has anyone read it?

Im hoping to hear views on this. Basically it says that Totalitarian Agriculture is the basis for our culture, producing more food than we need. This increases our population at a massive rate and actually PROMOTES famine because we overfarm etc etc etc.
There is a lot more to it but thats the basic idea.

Possibly true if he is talking about the US, India or China, but I don't think that is a likely situation in Ireland. We probably do make way more food than we need, but our population isn't increasing at a massive rate. I think medicine has a far more profound effect on population than food.

I do remember in Civ II though, your population grows quite fast once you buy the Granary for each of your cities

Manach

Of course the Pyramids wonder is very handy as it gives a granary in each city.

On Topic - agri-business is now a fact. It dominates food production and is squeezing out local producers. But it is just reacting to what consumers themselves shop for - standard size, food available in all seasons and cheap. <My source is from the book "Not on the Label">

Saruman

Wicknight this is covered in the book itself. Take certain countries and it does not apply.. Germany is an example given as it has little or no growth.. but taken on a whole it does apply.

Totalitarian agriculture is the style we use that gets the MAXIMUM ammount of food production, in other words you cant get much more. It also supports the idea of anything thats bad for agriculture must be destroyed. If a fox eats a chicken.. kill the fox and any others around just in case.

Actually irelands famine gets a mention in the book but nothing more.

Oh by "our culture" i mean not just western but eastern cultures too. In fact every culture EXCEPT tribal communities that follow a different path all together.

DadaKopf

I think food overproduction is a problem alright, but not for the reasons you say the guy says in the book. Populations in the richest countries are hitting a plateau or decreasing; populations are rising in poor countries, particularly in Africa, because households with more children increase their ability to produce food and provide welfare for elderly members.

Food overproduction is motivated by the need to make profit in the short run because (1) food rots if it's not harvested/slaughtered in a certain timeframe and (2) food producers need to maximise profits. But overproduction drives down prices, which motivated even greater food production.

According to the UN and other studies, there's enough food in the world to feed everyone - this was also the case during the Irish Famine. And given that development seems correlated with population decline, this shouldn't be a problem. The problem is that, firstly, it doesn't get distributed efficiently due to many, many reasons. Secondly, people's enitlements to food - such as having enough money to buy it, or owning their own land on which they grow their own food - can collapse; in other insecure situations - poverty, war etc. - famine can occur because leaders of households choose to starve themselves or (weaker) members of their households during difficult times because it enables them to preserve their assets (land, cows, farming equipment) in the long-term.

Back to my original point, I think food overproduction is a problem in the long term because the means by which it's produced forms part of a system that will affect the environment so badly that food production will decline in the very long term, possibly killing billions.

But I don't understand what the author means by 'Totalitarian Agriculture'?

Saruman

I think what he means by totalitarian is this.. 10,000 years ago when our agrculture system first started to appear, there were many other systems in place. Everything from hunter/gatherers to other forms of agriculture. These other ways were in harmony in the land and creatures that lived there. Then some people came up with a way to Max production by subduing the land and everything in it. If a creature is not suitable for farming, then it must be forced out or destroyed. Since this produces way more food, population grows... more land is needed, more food, more people and so on.. pretty soon our form of agriculture was the only type.

Before this we lived by a basic system every creature on earth follows. We me compete with another species for food but we may not prevent that species from getting access to food or destroy their food source, something along those lines.
What do we do? We do the opposite now. If something is in our way we destory it. If deer are grazing in our fields we shoot them. If a herd of deer are grazing we kill off the herd or move them away from their natural feeding ground. This is not just with other creatures.. same goes with humans.
In America, millions of buffalo were destroyed simplye because the natives lived off them, without access to a food source they were soon overcome.