I find it interesting also - the author makes good points.

It looks to me like author created the first paragraph only because he wanted a "catchy" title; one would provoke people into reading his article. Otherwise, he would have had to select a title more representative of the major content and message.

Just as Europe benefited from crops brought from the New World, without doubt there are foreign crops and methods which can benefit other regions. The problem with the efforts made to modernize these developing countries is the White Man's Burden that assumes they are inept and their systems have to be completely replaced, instead of working WITH the farmers to find what specific items work.

There's a large area of potential between ignoring struggling farmers in developing countries and convincing them to destroy the crops which are adapted to their areas in favor of terminator Monsanto seed, which is largely the patternt "modernization" that has happened. And yes, developing countries DO need local agriculture. They just need more of it.
The potato revolutionized Europe, but it also decimated Ireland.

I'm not sure about it decimating Ireland, it saved them in the potato famine. Wasn't it all the crops they mostly grew? Business decimated Ireland feeding egos of those who owned something. Everyone was a beggar because they could be evicted off of their plots any time by bratty owners playing god over their people and no law to prevent it.

As far as western ways to grow things, I just started a thread about good weeds and how most farmers found their crops grew better next to them, plus the weed had far more nutrition than their crop did if eaten.

Monsanto should be outlawed. How can you make plants that produce no seed? It's the ultimate form of national corporatism, no seed saving, and you will always be dependent to sellers for eternity unless you save cuttings. Totally unfair to people and to the environment.

Western gardening is expensive, nutrition-less, tedious, and back breaking. Mostly used for looks, not for real food production.

Westerners buy their soil, already seeded plants, commercial compost and manure, and create double or triple the cost of food purchased from the grocery stores for one backyard gardener. I hope we don't go to other countries preaching on how to garden, we would starve them before they would get anything out of their labors.

And what's this about a lettuce table for them? Can you exist on lettuce alone? Greens are fast growing, but foraged local foods are probably more beneficial and should be grown instead.

"Poverty -- caused by the low income productivity of farmers' labor -- is the primary source of hunger in Africa, and the problem is only getting worse."

Let me fix that sentence for everyone...

Poverty -- caused by the growing of for-market crops for the world market rather than sustainability of the local community -- is the primary source of hunger in Africa, and the problem is only getting worse.

...those cheap European tomatoes are rarely from Europe

btw...

Robert Paalberg, who wrote the article, is a lobbist for GM crop industry.

He wants (now mostly banned) GM seeds to be sold in Africa.

He's an adviser to the CEO of...wait for it...Monsanto.

Another intersting article. An interview with Norman Borlaug, not long befor he died.

I wonder what the cost is to ship all that compost dirt to each individual farmer? It makes sense to save your clipping that would just be humped up in a yard somewhere causing damage and make good use out of them. Organic is for backyard gardeners making do with what they have or for stranded people with no resources. Do you think Africans have buses to take them to nurseries? And do you think they would buy seeds that don't produce seeds? Next year, they might not have an income to buy seeds.

Organic is not the most productive method of growing things, but if you did it right, intensive gardening, it would be worth it. You can get 4 or 5 times more per foot than what most production gardeners get out their square foot.

More effort local, more output, still more than Monsanto can create with disastrous seeds. If they mixed with local plants, producing no seeds for their local ecology system, it would be a giant dust storm like deserts. Deserts in their day were covered in growth, something happened, and now that? What happened? Maybe an early Monsanto we haven't heard about yet.

"I'm not sure about it decimating Ireland, it saved them in the potato famine. Wasn't it all the crops they mostly grew?"

The potato was such a good crop -- high in protein and nutrients and maximum calories for minimal land -- the Irish poor grew ONLY potatoes. When the waves of potato blight came, fueled by their wet and cool weather, they starved. There was nothing else to eat.

Obviously there were political causes as well that brought the poor to that state and let things spiral out of control. The blight occured all over Europe but only in Ireland did over a million people starve to death because of it.

19th century Ireland has a lot in common with 21st century developing nations. You can't just sell corn seed (for example) to a community that eats millet and convince them to put all their land in that crop. Their margin of error is too small; one crop failure can mean death. Without the ability to save seed, they can't develop improved varieties for their land and money flows away from the poor country and into the wealthier one each year instead of being reinvested locally.

It's economic colonialism, not altruism, when mega corporations "help" developing nations by selling them stuff. Any positive effects are purely coincidental.

Interesting article but I don't think the writer has thought the whole circle out. Just because improved agriculture has moved people from the country to the city doesn't mean it has fixed anything. It's just shifted it and prolonged the poverty. I've always wondered how someone in power could possibly think the that crowding a large amount of people in a small area and having them work for currency, will make them have a better life. If anything goes wrong, they can't even fall back on growing their own food....and they owe everyone. Granted this paradigm does provide cheap, secure labor and enables huge brainstorming to occur but it really leaves the masses to possible hunger in the long run. In fact, as scarletdaisies and Ireland reminds us, not being a landowner can be a problem.

To me the west refuses to see that the last 50 years only existed because they found a cheap power source and finally developed the technology to exploit it. If that goes away, then expect to see the past come roaring back along with never ending wars.

Frankly the best thing we could do is feed the poor while teaching them all the info we've learned about the soil and growing food...the good and the bad....so they can make informed choices. If not that, then just let them be. And meanwhile in our society, we need to bridge the "nature vs technology rift" and come to grips that while we might think we're in control, we may well be fooling ourselves. The fact is there are poor in all societies and just because our poor are richer doesn't mean they are in any better shape.

Ok....I'm stepping down now.

Oops....one more thing. One thing really burns me. I hate that statement about romanticizing the past. This too will someday be the past and not everyone will think it was as good as some of us will. Comparing one century to another isn't what it's about. It's about picking through all the science and building the best future......a future more than 50 years from now.

What is most sad for Ireland is that its good neighbor was doing so well, England. No help from England for Ireland's troubles. That is very sad, but again that is why America got an onslaught of Irish immigrants and I don't think America would be the same without it. I'm sorry those too poor were stuck in Ireland and starved to death when they were giving away land here for the taking.

This is why it seems impossible for me to see a European union. All of these little countries in Europe are not only different nationalities, speak different languages, but have all fought each other in so many wars, how could you have pride in any Union? They all secretly blame each other and have not so far off relatives who died fighting each other.

I can't understand with all the true research how they can come up with that only Western type foods can feed the world. I've never heard of a millet in the US, but would grow it to see what it does. If that is the staple, has been for a thousand years, immigrants to the US probably can vow to this, why was this food not encouraged or promoted for its people first?

Africa has an abundance of wonderful crops we in America cherish, Cinnamon, black pepper, yams, peanuts, watermelon, rice, okra, etc., we owe a lot to the heritage of Africa including the fact it is all our motherlands. We all started in Africa in the beginning, all our first tribes originated in Africa.

How can we say the starched up disease diabetes causing foods we have are better for them? They are not any cheaper to grow, surely not more healthy.

Well, let's not forget who wrote the story and his background.

He's a pro-GM lobbyist who's circular logic is well known. His credentials at the bottom of the article fail to mention his ties to lobbying and his advisor-to-CEO of Monsanto position he also holds.

He writes pro-GM commercials for the "industry" to find places in publications using his education and teaching background for credibility.

shebear - Because that's the history of the western industrial and agricultural revolutions -- and why westerners of course think it will work for everywhere. Our modern prosperity is based on using the resources of what we now call the developing world. Sorry, they aren't all going to be able to live the American/European lifestyle unless we find somewhere else to pillage.

scarletdaisies -- A form of ornamental millet is grown in the US as a flower; it's really a grassy plant. People also feed it to their birds. It grows well in arid conditions and has a nutritional profile similar to wheat. Tastes similar, too -- most health food stores and anywhere with big bins of raw grains will have it if you want to try it, or I think Bob's Red Mill brand has millet. Since wheat grows better here and Americans don't have a tradition of eating it, I doubt we'll ever see it as an important commercial crop in the US. It would literally have to supplant wheat.

On the other hand, the Central Valley of California might be a good place for millet once all the irrigation water is gone.

I fidn it hard to believe the average Whole Foods shopper who wants slow food thinks this means Africa shouldn't build roads or irrigation systems. Does anyone really think that?

It seems pretty absurd to equate the current state of agriculture in Africa - with almost no fertilizer use and only 4% with irrigation, according to the article - with organic faming! I have never heard of anyone saying irrigation wasn't organic.

Even if there is some sort of radical organic fringe out there who think roads and irrigation are bad, that Paalberg tries to paint all supporters of organic farming in this light tips me off to the fact that he has a very biased agenda.

This sort of red-blue, all or nothing propaganda (on either side of a debate) is so rampant in the US now it is scary. How can we make any progress if people refuse to even try to see each other's points of view and compromise? Meanwhile, the rich get richer and the poor continue to starve.

That's a sales pitch for his company. All the rich who want to make good with him will force others to buy from them now. We'll be forced to see how great it is especially now when the supreme court is judging Monsanto.

GM owns Monsanto, the car company? I would boycott them if that were true, not that I could buy a new car with my income today.

I think if people do not want genetically treated seeds, they shouldn't have to buy them. The US made Iraq use them, so I hope when the war is over, they can go back to their usual seeds if slave lifelong contracts were not signed, you know how government works.

Monsanto is only protecting their seed lines in Iraq, they're not forcing anyone to use their seeds.

The fact all these chemical companies can set up shop in Iraq and have laws to protect their interests so quickly, though...that's another matter. It was shoved through quite quickly and almost every US agriculture, i mean, chemical company has now set up shop there with distribution and American-style protection laws.

GM = genetically modified, not the car company.

I read the article and am glad someone did the digging for me on who they guy was who wrote it, it actually made the article make sense as in it didn't make sense, not to me anyway (by the way the OP one not the later one) high rice prices for export, increased hunger, to paraphrase, maybe instead of increased production, maybe what is needed is the profit from those crops to be paid to the farmers not the middlemen and Western sellers, I saw this in Kenya where large companies try to smash co-operatives of small farmers who in can due to collective bargaining, get a better price for their produce than if they each have to negotiate separately.
he aslo use organic's as the argument, apples and pears, the average gardener in America will possibly have more in common with a Kenyan Farmer than an organic grower in the US would, Kenyan Farms are in the main fairly small and plant intensively, they are small, just an acre sometimes they will, have a couple of cows (more normally a couple of goats), some chickens, one farm which was part of a community project of about 20 with some government help, took self sufficiency to a new level, all waste from the 2 cows and the chickens was in a pit, as was the human waste, methane collected to run the household light's and for cooking, they had 2 of these pits and when one was full the next was started once the methane was waning, the well rotted manure was used along with compost to feed the land, (like to point out Kenyan are not totally vegetarian, but meat is a luxury, few can afford, except when a chicken stops laying or your goat has a boy) which is packed the idea is to feed the family and then have a little left over for other needs in life.
Water is collected in the rainy season and even when I stayed on vast ranches occupied by white farmers, all the water was collected this way, the well water was strictly for Human and animal consumption, so even though I could have a bath/shower the water was brown.
most of Africa poverty has been due to western greed, poor management of the land in search of profit and wars, the people best served at helping the African's in my book are the African's not some other money grabbing western company, if you could see the Kenyian agricultural research stations I saw in 1995, you would realise how forward thinking they are, my fear is that since that time the Monsanto's of this world will have, offered aid and "help" since that time and made another country dependent. that said reading that I did go onto the Ministry of Ag website for Kenya today, and they have rolled out a program over the passed 4 years for poor farmers giving free or "orphan" seeds as they can then, my reading is that they are heirlooms as it talks about Farmer's becoming self sufficient in their seed needs, which points against GM.
Okay this is 15 years out of date my info from when i was with the Kenyan Min of Ag, but African's are not like you see in the movies, they are free thinking and intelligent (corruption is another matter! but even there they are trying) Africa is a huge continent and no to countries are alike but that was my experience and why I get so cross at articles like that, you notice he didn't mention GM?
I also had a Friend who's Farm in the UK in the 1990's donated out land for research on GM crops to the Local University, they pulled the plug as they where asked by the researchers if they could take samples from their crops, they where pretty open as they where a university research group, not a company, that they had found cross pollination and the company funding was interested in the idea of DNA marking due to this, so, even a farmer who doesn't buy in to the crops if they seed save and the DNA turns up in their crops...and we all now how the end to that...and if you don't watch, King Corn, descent, honest, hard working Americans ruined, bankrupt, by greedy business, I liked film as the politician who started the ball rolling in the US was interviewed for the film just before his death, and I had sympathy for his views, he remembered the depression, and wanted a better future unfortunately, the law of unforeseen circumstances, came into play, and for the life of me, I can't remember his name??
Scarletdaisy the potato famine was because the potatoes got late blight and due to monoculture and mild winters, no crop rotation, so the main crop of Ireland failed and failed again, year after year, the English did nothing as A/ the minority where extremely rich, B/ mostly in poverty.
European Union, fine? didn't get your comment on that? for instance culturally the British hate the French, France hate Germany, Germany saw England as it's natural allies, at the run up to WW2, Scot hate the English but love the French, the rule in Europe is you hate the bigger nearest country to you, and love the next Biggest, like everyone in a smaller country except Luxembourg, we all hate them! :-) but these are actually jokes, in the main, you get the odd person who doesn't get it in every country, but I love the French, used to do my grocery shopping there when i lived in the UK once a month, Germans are the most lovely people, I married to a Scot and I am English, the easist way I can describe it is we are the smae as America, each state has it's own laws and then has common laws amongst you all, there are silly rivalries, between states which mean nothing but are fun to engage in, here in CT I suppose it it the NY Yankees and the Boston?? whatevers?? Patriots?? I am in soooo much trouble forgetting that! whoops!

"the people best served at helping the African's in my book are the African's"

Well said.

I have no problem with Western companies offering their products for sale -- the locals are smart enough to catch on to the game in a few years even if they believe the advertising at first.

My lip starts to curl when buying these products is a requirement for World Bank loans, which are only needed because these countries cans are still paying for the money Europe (and the US) spent conquering them and Europe's debt fighting the wars that led to their independence. That's like a thief presenting you with a bill for the tools he used to break into your house.

Great article, Susan! Thanks for posting it! The article lists many important FACTS, including these:

"The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition last year published a study of 162 scientific papers from the past 50 years on the health benefits of organically grown foods and found no nutritional advantage over conventionally grown foods. According to the Mayo Clinic, No conclusive evidence shows that organic food is more nutritious than is conventionally grown food."

"Less than 1 percent of American cropland is under certified organic production. If the other 99 percent were to switch to organic and had to fertilize crops without any synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, that would require a lot more composted animal manure. To supply enough organic fertilizer, the U.S. cattle population would have to increase roughly fivefold. And because those animals would have to be raised organically on forage crops, much of the land in the lower 48 states would need to be converted to pasture. Organic field crops also have lower yields per hectare. If Europe tried to feed itself organically, it would need an additional 28 million hectares of cropland, equal to all of the remaining forest cover in France, Germany, Britain, and Denmark combined."

Fun, and always informative!

The point of the article, unfortunately, isn't organic food production.

The guy who wrote the article writes many of these a year. He always finds a way to pimp the hell out of GM crops and their link to being a golden pathway to food production glory.

The headline...the "organic debate" he shallowly wraps the whole thing around...forget it...it's an advertisement and argument for the social acceptance of GM crops in Africa.

That is what this guy does for a living. Getting GM crops into Africa is his goal and his efforts are what pays his bills.

I agree, it's a blatantly pro-conventional ag blurb. Quite shameless attempt to blame starvation on organic shoppers in the west instead of the true cause: powerlessness, and the never-ending effects of imperialism. Africa is more than ever dominated by first-world business, primarily mines and immense ranches and timbering.

Though it's true that shopping at whole foods isn't helping anyone except the sharelholders.

We here in the US still have a North and South issue, but on a much minor level. It does have it's influence, so just because our civil war ended in about 4 years after it started, many people are still arguing over who was right about what, not the slavery issue. None believe it should have been legal to keep slaves.

It makes me think of all those countries, wars, and the stories each family would have of their lost ones. Politics would be much harder in Europe than in the US. I'm glad to know there isn't as much hate as I would assume. To be honest, our Americans would still be at each others' throats if there was that much bad history between each other. This is a strange country and I believe a petty one sometimes, so no forgiveness is mostly what you get here. It's confusing to see us argue for the EU when we can barely live it ourselves with like and common speaking people. Europe has 2 thousand years on us and America has existed only for 4 hundred, not an experienced country at all.

Thanks for the GM, I'm sorry to sound so dumb, but I couldn't figure out what it meant.

I think you have it confused that you need manure for a garden. Brown and green is really all you need, brown dead leaves grass mixed in layers of green fresh leaves or grasses. The two mix and make a natural heat creating and enzyme or bacteria that turns waste into something beneficial. The nutrients of the leaves, grasses, weeds, peelings of vegetables, coffee grounds, etc., are all you need. Adding manure is a quick way to get the pile heated, but it's not necessary.

Organic farming is about not having to buy chemicals to kill bugs using companion planting and intercropping, it's about succession planting to continue as much of a crop even after something is already done producing throughout the year, it also involves in extending your growing season. If you put more work into an organic garden than you get out of it, you are not doing it right.

Research of if it's better or not is probably bias for Monsanto. I wouldn't trust it and in long term, chemicals produce more troubles in the soil and it does cost more in the long run to fix than an organic garden.

Organic gardens empower the simple man, his small plots can produce 4 or 5 times the produce if it's done right. Professional farmers plant to allow their machines to get in between the rows leaving valuable growing space, they don't wait around for the next round from some plants, but take them right out of the ground like corn or beans, instead of collect all season, they pull them out and replant. There is no way a normal professional farm could compete with a true organic farm. Look at the Square Foot Garden programs, they grow intensive amounts of food in one small plot, but they have to be hand worked.

There is more future in organic gardens than the wasteful ways with the chemical baths to weed decaying the ground and making it unusable.