Leaders warn on biofuels and food

[Twig6]

.087 ha per person is probably plenty of arable land on which to grow crops to support Haiti's current population, given that a person could theoretically comfortably live, even by Western diet standards (CanadaFood Guide portions) on food produced on .04 ha of land (including raising small livestock, growing vegetables, and grain). greenspree.ca at The Sietch Self Sufficiency

What we have been forcing on Haiti isn't sending our surplus to where it's needed. It's not a benevolent thing in the least, although it's often presented that way, despite it's economic irrationality.

Every nation on earth imports at least some of their food--this is only a problem if those imports are forced into their market via economic policies, and not up to actual demand for imports in that country. Outside of all actual market forces, it wreaks havoc on an economy and domestic food production, in the worst cases breaking a domestic economy and neccessitating actual food aid so people don't starve.

The way to tell usually is that aid is short-term, and forcing cheap grain onto foreign markets is long-term.

And there is something else that can be done for Haiti besides forcing more cheap grain on them--give them their economy back. Forgive the $1.4 BILLION dollars in foreign debt Haiti "owes" the WorldBank/IMF and the IDB for the privledge of being exploited and stolen from. That would go a long way towards actually helping people who live on less than $2 a day move towards economic independence, and free their society from the economically strangling policies they've been forced to adopt under the terms of this debt.

And maybe if other countries did this, the U.S.'s own economy might just be saved alongside because we'd be forced to adapt from a debt-dependent-financial-scheme-and-resource-theft economy into something more...sustainable? Ah, that's probably too much to hope for.

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by Twig6

Haiti’s “trouble” with population growth is directly related to the fact that cheap grain has been forced on them unceremoniously from the U.S., cause population is a function of food supply:

Human Population Numbers As a Function of Food Supply

Human Carrying Capacity Is Determined by Food Availability

What you are really saying is that in the absence of imported food, people starve or leave and the human population reduces to the carrying capacity. Great, let’s keep the poor poor and it doesn’t matter if they starve. Such policies just create political instability.

Originally Posted by Twig6

If Haiti had been treated as most other industrialized countries have been treated, vs. loan sharking them into ridiculous economic policies, their population would most likely have grown more along with their actual production and import capabilities. Their production would probably have been increased to keep up with more sustainable population growth and demand.

Probably not. There is simply no evidence anywhere that any human society has reduce the number of births in response to less available resources. What has happened instead has been emigration and conflict with neighbouring societies over access to resources. It has only been in the recent period that birth rates have declined. This has occurred most profoundly in the most economically advanced societies.

Originally Posted by Twig6

Of course, you can’t achieve that democracy when you’re indebted to powerful institutions who are intent on reducing the population of your country to slave labor for large corporations.

What strikes me as odd in your statement is that corporations are most powerful in societies that are richer and have least power in societies that are poorer. Poor people can’t buy stuff and so cannot provide profits for corporations. Therefore, corporations tend to concentrate their efforts where the money is. After all, they are profit making ventures.

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by Twig6

0.087 ha per person is probably plenty of arable land on which to grow crops to support Haiti's current population, given that a person could theoretically comfortably live, even by Western diet standards (CanadaFood Guide portions) on food produced on .04 ha of land (including raising small livestock, growing vegetables, and grain). greenspree.ca at The Sietch Self Sufficiency

I very much doubt it. We are talking an area of less than 100 feet by 100 feet that will have to be cropped continuously and can grow 7 tonne wheat crops. I don’t know if a theoretical musing on a blog counts as evidence that this can be done. How do you grow 101 tonnes per hectare per year of chicken meat free range? This family is theoretically growing 108 meat chickens per year on an area of 16 feet by 16 feet.

Originally Posted by Twig6

What we have been forcing on Haiti isn't sending our surplus to where it's needed. It's not a benevolent thing in the least, although it's often presented that way, despite it's economic irrationality.

Every nation on earth imports at least some of their food--this is only a problem if those imports are forced into their market via economic policies, and not up to actual demand for imports in that country. Outside of all actual market forces, it wreaks havoc on an economy and domestic food production, in the worst cases breaking a domestic economy and neccessitating actual food aid so people don't starve.

Haiti imports almost 50% of it’s food to survive. That is not being forced on them as such – except that the alternative is to starve. The only reason there was such a large rice industry in Haiti in the first place was because the Haitian government subsidised it so greatly. Once the subsidies went the industry found its own level on the world market. Unfortunately, due to US subsidies this was pretty low and growers moved out of rice into other staple crops. They didn’t stop growing food and the amount of cultivated land did not decrease. The overall food production did not decrease either. The mix of food changed. The bottom line remains that Haiti has too many people to feed solely from the agricultural land available. Their economy of Haiti was not wrecked by having food imports forced on them. A range of factors have left the Haitian economy vulnerable, not least of which has been political corruption.

[Twig6]

I don’t post as much or engage at all with certain people on this site anymore because I seriously don’t have time to respond to faux moralizing and dishonesty instead of real arguments where each side thinks critically and gets to learn something. I’d rather spend my time learning something new instead of hearing the same old same old because then I have to TALK about the same old same old. You can’t get to solutions when people still refuse to address the actual problems.

Information to dispute every word of the above 2 posts already exists in the other posts on this thread and the links in them, and I’m not going to retype them.

Except one point that I thought was obvious but apparently isn't to some: a decrease in production is wholly unnecessary for economic collapse of a system. The absence of economic/production growth to keep pace with other dependent growth=the collapsing of a system. For example, a stock market crash could be defined as an absence of expected growth (i.e. continued buying of stock) to keep pace with other factors, just like Haiti's food production and actual economic ability to import food couldn't keep up with population growth when the U.S. policy was to force cheap grain into their market, which in turn forced the unsustainable population growth.

The damage has already been done, of course, but the answer is not "more of the same" but rather more like giving very SHORT TERM food aid at the same time forgiving debts so the Haitian people can get their economy & ability to grow their food production back. Obviously, they can continue to import food if they want or need to, but it should be on THEIR terms. The point is to let them get to a place where they rebuild their economy without the burden of economic colonization. I think that's pretty much common sense.

And that's all I have to say, I've already made my case in previous posts.

[screener]

Originally Posted by Cricket Tragic

screener, what would be Haiti’s energy budget? They have little natural energy resources, so do they get to use imports?

The basic math is the following: for Haiti in 2008, 8.9 million people, 775,000 ha of arable land. That makes 0.087 ha of arable land per person. Population growth rate 2.4%. https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...ha.html#People

Compare this with the World: 6677.6 million people, 1982 million ha of arable land. This makes 0.297 ha of arable land per person. Population growth rate 1.16%.

I suggest it doesn’t matter what is done for Haiti, they are very unlikely to be able to feed their current population without imports. Haiti has 44,000 ha in coffee, but much of this land would be unsuitable for growing cereals, such as rice (the Haitian staple). In the case of Haiti, insisting coffee came out and food crops went in would likely have minimal impact on food security, but a major impact on the economic circumstances of coffee growers.

cricket, as was mentioned earlier Haitians should be allowed to work out their own sustainability. That said, and given that we can ease some burdens for them so that they have a little resource to start that process, let me say that I am not the one to be determining Haitian directions.

When I was talking about how we could help by living within our energy budgets, I was talking about the developed world. The part of the world that got developed with the help of other people and their resources.

Whether the land was used to grow coffee, bananas, mangos, or other crops that were suitable to the area isn't all that important. what is important is that Haitis first priority should be the development of a sustainable food system for their own use and not for the use of growing luxuries for wealthy people in wealthy nations.

In one of our other discussions you pointed out that few people are eating dirt, but in Haiti people are eating dirt.

[spadlet]

Out of curiosity, what effect do people think that a boycott of Haiti's products would have? Catastrophe? Short term problems but long-term benefit? etc

I was just wondering because it appeared that Cuba developed it's own methods for sustainable food production in response to the trade barriers imposed by the USA, but it doesn't seem to have been an easy ride for them.

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by spadlet

Out of curiosity, what effect do people think that a boycott of Haiti's products would have? Catastrophe? Short term problems but long-term benefit? etc

I was just wondering because it appeared that Cuba developed it's own methods for sustainable food production in response to the trade barriers imposed by the USA, but it doesn't seem to have been an easy ride for them.

Haiti’s main exports are coffee and mangos. A boycott of Haitian exports would be disastrous for the people. They already need to import about 50% of their food. A boycott of Haitian exports will only reduce their ability to buy food.

As for Cuba, their urban food revolution has been fabulous. They still have rationing for food and their food imports have doubled between 2000 and 2006. There are various estimates, none of which seem to be well documented, that between 70 and 85% of all food is imported.

You can't fool the children of the revolution - World - theage.com.au

[Twig6]

Originally Posted by spadlet

Out of curiosity, what effect do people think that a boycott of Haiti's products would have? Catastrophe? Short term problems but long-term benefit? etc

I was just wondering because it appeared that Cuba developed it's own methods for sustainable food production in response to the trade barriers imposed by the USA, but it doesn't seem to have been an easy ride for them.

IMO, catastrophe.

I think the best thing that people can do is support/demand debt relief, which would concurrently remove the IMF/WB/IDB policies that have kept Haiti (and many other nations) down:

IMF/WB Report

Additionally, if individual people want to help support local people and local farming in Haiti and elsewhere directly, there are lots of options, many of which give people tools to help themselves. You can buy food from Haiti that's been bought from farmers there for a fair price, contribute to organizations like Heifer.org, etc. that help people achieve farming self-sufficience, etc. Or do a search online for something else--for example, there are educational funds to help send Haitian children to school: Projects - Help Haiti

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by Twig6

I don’t post as much or engage at all with certain people on this site anymore because I seriously don’t have time to respond to faux moralizing and dishonesty instead of real arguments where each side thinks critically and gets to learn something.

I am aware that many people look for evidence to affirm their existing views rather than to determine what is correct, but you take this to a whole new extreme. As soon as any of your views are challenged you accuse the challenger of dishonesty, not because you can prove what they said was wrong (you never give any evidence – just talk in generalities about how you have disproved the point in other posts), but it appears because it threatens your world view.

To say “if they hadn’t been given cheap food before, there would be fewer people in Haiti now” is technically correct, but rather unhelpful as a strategy. So what happens to the extra people? There are only two possibilities, they starve or leave.

There is clear evidence that human birth rates decrease with increasing economic prosperity. For example:

Population and environment-Box 1

http://www.un.org/esa/population/pub...nalrevised.pdf

The birth rate would not have decreased in Haiti regardless of whether they were given cheap food or not.

If you were to take a break from looking at the world through neo-Leninist glasses with corporations, the IMF, WTO, and the US Government as the new imperialists, perhaps you might recognise that the world is not black and white, but composed of many shades of grey.

Originally Posted by Twig6

Information to dispute every word of the above 2 posts already exists in the other posts on this thread and the links in them, and I’m not going to retype them.

What a silly thing to say. You want to dispute that Haiti imports 50% of its food? Or that the Haitian government subsidized its rice industry?

To be frank, I get the strong impression that you know very little about agriculture and virtually nothing about world trade. Yet that doesn’t stop you pontificating about these subjects. In case you hadn’t notice, trade is a contract between a buyer and a seller. The buyer wants the lowest possible price, the seller the highest price. The value of the goods is dependent on the strength of interest by the buyer compared with the strength of interest by the seller. Goods with high demand, but low availability will have high prices compared with goods with low demand and high availability. From Haiti’s view THEIR terms would be for cheap food. Unfortunately because of the strength of interests by buyers, they are not going to get this. Hence the food riots.

The fact that food has been relatively cheap for Haitians for the last 20 years, merely means the riots are happening now rather then 20 years ago.

[spadlet]

Originally Posted by Twig6

You can buy food from Haiti that's been bought from farmers there for a fair price

Which takes us back to the whole Fairtrade versus local production issue.