🚀 go-pugleaf

Tulay <vctm1@gte.net> wrote in message news:<3B787D21.A2ED7FBF@gte.net>...
> PeopleEater wrote:
> 
> > snip
> > > > > OH?? What do you think we DO with our huge agricultural output? Try
> > > > > visiting the Port of New Orleans (or Sacramento) and see all the grain
> > > > > ships lined up there, loading grain destined for the world. We truly live
> > > > > in an international economy.
> > > >
> > > > I agree that ew do produce a surplus, but the other guy I was talking
> > > > with seems to think that the US is the *only* nation that actually
> > > > grows food.
> > >
> > > We produce so much that if we were to stop sending it over seas, there
> > > would be massive starvations in many countries.......and no, we are not
> > > the only producers, but we get the most produced with the least human
> > > effort.
> >
> > There already is massive starvation in many countries. Hell, most
> > don't even have access to safe drinking water. Problem is with the 3rd
> > World is not that most countries don't have the capability to grow
> > their own food, but that they do so ineffeciently or their gov't
> > ennacts laws or programs that prevent them form building a
> > self-supporting agricultural economy. First off, the most effiecent
> > food-producers are small farmers who own their land.
> 
> If that was true, the US would not be the greatest producer of food.
> The BIG surpluses we have comes from hugh farms with hugh outputs
> per acre.  Much greater than could be achieved by small farmers.

I'm sure that would seem true at first glance, but numerous studies
have shown the opposite. This was, in fact, part of US foreign policy
during the Cold War. The US realized that in order for Japan and S.
Korea to achieve some degree of economic stability then some radical
redistribution of land would be necessary, particularly breaking up
the large farms and giving small plots away to independent farmers.

And I'm sure the US produces huge surpluses of food for a number of
reasons other than large corps. owning most of the farmland,
specifically mechanization, economic/political stability, and clean
land/water. If you look at what the Chinese and Russians did, which
was to create collective farms where the workers were not the owners
of the land they worked, then you will see how drastically crop
production fell.