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From: terry@nrcvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: No Limits to Growth
Message-ID: <831@nrcvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Mar-87 13:36:55 EST
Article-I.D.: nrcvax.831
Posted: Mon Mar 30 13:36:55 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 2-Apr-87 07:09:36 EST
References: <120300015@inmet> <513@cpocd2.UUCP> <1866@k.cc.purdue.edu> <533@cpocd2.UUCP>
Reply-To: terry@minnie.UUCP (Terry Grevstad)
Organization: Network Research Corp.  Oxnard, CA
Lines: 35

howard@cpocd2.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) says:
>Please followup to sci.bio as this has gotten away from a kids subject.
>
>In article <1866@k.cc.purdue.edu> ahe@k.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Bill Wolfe) writes:
>>In article <513@cpocd2.UUCP> howard@cpocd2.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) writes:
>>>You mean like in Ethiopia?
>>
>>   Actually, there is more than enough to go around; it's just a 
>>   question of distribution.  Look at all the grain stacked up in
>>   Midwestern silos, the overproduction which is driving food prices
>>   down to where the farmers are going bust, etc....  
>>   
>>   The problem is that the Ethiopian economy cannot generate the required
>>   cash, and this in turn has a political/cultural basis.
>
>Unfortunately, when transportation/storage/distribution of food costs
>much more than the food itself, the only reasonable solution is to have
>each bioregion be more-or-less self-sufficient.  Only recently has it
>even been possible for a society to eat more than it grows, and only extremely
>wealthy states with high population densities, where food is a small part
>of the economy, have been able to make it work.  Ethiopia will not be in this
>class for many, many years.

Actually, from what I've read, Ethiopia was doing fine until a civil
war started, and the scorched earth policy of the winning side
coincided with a drought.  Then, when food started arriving from other
countries, the "winning side" held it back from the other side in order
to bring more pressure to bear on them to give up the fight and
relocate where the "winning side" wanted them to be so they could
become your basic lower class factory worker type and not produce for
themselves thereby becoming dependent on the "winning side".

The whole thing is was and will be political.  Given the appropriate political
environment, Ethiopia was and could be again able to produce enough
food to feed its people.