Rastafari roots of plant-based eating

An Ital meal of rice, ackee, callaloo, and veggie chunks.

Source: Wikimedia Commons (2009)

In considering a vegan diet, I imagine a young, progressive urban consumer motivated by environmental or animal welfare concerns. In other words, someone who likely shops at a Whole Foods. In the West, veganism is packaged as something performed through individual consumer choices. That framing obscures the structural conditions shaping diets, and reinforces the mistaken belief that veganism is a modern invention. The “Ital” tradition complicates the popular narrative of modern veganism. Long before plant-based eating carried a price premium in Los Angeles, it was ordinary in the hills of rural Jamaica. 

The Rastafari movement began in the 1930s in Jamaica among the working poor who had been devastated by the global financial crash of 1929 and prolonged colonial mismanagement. These forces created mass unemployment and rural-to-urban migration into the slums of west Kingston. Rastas fled to the rural mountains where they could access land and practice self-governance without persecution.  

Leonard P. Howell, an early Rastafari leader, drew on the practices of Hindu indentured laborers in Jamaica to promote what became known as Ital living. The word “Ital” comes from “vital,” dropping the first letter to emphasize the pronoun “I”. This linguistic practice signals unity with the speaker, the listener, and Jah (God). Ital eating is an expression of “livity,” a Rastafari concept that the individual can embody and express spirituality through the practices of daily life.  For Rastafarians, Jah exists in all of creation, including plants, animals, and people. As such there is a divine force or energy in everything. 

What one puts in one’s body either enhances or degrades this life force. Food that has been processed or chemically altered is considered corrupted and further from Jah’s creation. Life force does not begin at the moment of consumption. Powell’s research participants described farming, cultivation, and conservation as the literal pouring of one’s energy and emotion into the earth. The sincerity of this effort determines how the earth responds and reciprocates that energy. 

Rural Rastafari food is shaped by what the land yields. Coconuts are naturally abundant across Jamaica. They are cracked, drained, grated, and squeezed into milk that forms the base of most dishes. Vegetables and aromatics are sautéed in coconut oil. The food typically contains beans, spices, chili peppers, and the coconut milk, stewed for hours over low heat and eaten communally. A strict Ital diet rejects salt as “a needless adulteration” of what Jah placed on the earth, so herbs and dry seasonings are key. Scotch bonnet peppers, thyme, lemongrass, allspice, and nutmeg build complex flavor without salt. 

The one-pot stew is a practical response to the rural conditions of Rastafari life. Land access is limited, so the range of available produce is narrow. A single pot stretches what is on hand to feed the community. Cooking takes place outside in clay pots often balanced over a wood fire by three stones. Metal cookware is avoided on the belief that it harms the body. 

In Saint Lucia, a young Rasta farmer described conversing with plants throughout their life cycle to transfer positive energy to them. He explained that during planting one must ensure a positive heart is present because this very energy will be transmitted to the earth. The same is true of cooking. Ital food involves preparing food with a clean heart to transfer life force into the food. Food must be cooked slowly, with intention and gratitude. This preserves and transmits the life energy that began in the soil. Food is not just physically nourishing; it is also spiritually nourishing.

Food that is rushed or processed severs the energy force and transmits a lower form. It follows too that food grown under corporate conditions is spiritually degraded. Jahson Peat, who runs a vegan restaurant in London called Zionly Manna, presents Ital as a process of relearning that strips away the method of eating brought about by colonialism. This is inseparable from a rejection of capitalism itself. Commitment to Ital eating is tightly linked to a broader turn away from the imported industrial and materialist ways of life, which are all combined under the Rastafari concept of “Babylon.” 

By contrast, mainstream veganism operates according to market logic. It converts diet choices into an ethical identity. For some, it is an exercise in personal branding, where what you eat signals who you are. This channels genuine ethical concerns for animals and the environment into demand for plant-based products. In this sense, the market-based vegan movement can be seen not as a challenge to the current food system, but a force that risks expanding it further, as seen through the IPO of Beyond Meat. The growth of this plant-based segment does not depend on replacing meat consumption, only on expanding overall consumer demand. The Ital diet is not a consumer identity. It seeks to reject the economic system and the very notion of consumerism upon which it relies. 

However, Ital does not operate entirely independent of market forces. Jaffe’s concept of “Ital chic” describes the convergence of middle-class consumerism and the Ital diet. In Kingston, Rasta symbols have been used to market artisanal soap lines and premium vegetable products. When a brand sells coconut-milk products with Rasta packaging, it co-opts a tradition built on self-sufficiency and places it inside the very market that tradition was designed to reject. This dynamic is similar to that explored in a blog post from this semester about rural tourism. It noted that rural culture is often packaged to meet consumer expectations, with authenticity operating as a selling point. 

Plant-based eating did not begin with a farmer’s market or with a marketing campaign. It owes some of its roots to rural Jamaica, where people grew what the earth offered based on a theological conviction. That story deserves to be remembered before it is repackaged.

Rural morality and the left

Western Norway

Source: Wikimedia Commons (2016)

Internationalism, the idea that people and states should organize across borders, is a popular organizing principle on the political left. It takes two related forms. Liberal internationalism promotes rule of law, open markets, and free trade as a path to peace through multilateral governance. Socialist internationalism emphasizes solidarity among workers across nations, rather than competition between them. Both tend to replace an emphasis on local community with an abstract political identity that isn’t rooted in any particular place. 

International governance creates a layer of authority that communities cannot meaningfully influence. The resulting cosmopolitan governing class (sometimes pejoratively referred to as “globalists”) are socially and geographically distant from communities affected by their policy. Meanwhile, international economic integration guts local economic prospects so that multinational firms can thrive. After China's accession to the World Trade Organization, imports of Chinese furniture surged, leading firms that once anchored the manufacturing economy of High Point to shut local factories and source production abroad

This process spreads similar models of education and culture, eroding distinct regional identities and traditions. In the name of internationalism, many have advocated for cultivating cosmopolitan “citizens of the world.” Within this frame, local or regional culture is something to be overcome, not preserved. Is rural culture something that needs to be overcome in pursuit of a more equal society? 

French philosopher Jean-Claude Michèa offers a critique of liberalism that bears directly on this question. Until recently his work was unavailable in English. Michael Behrent, a History Professor at Appalachian State University, published a collection of his works titled Toward a Conservative Left. Don’t let the title put you off. What the title evokes is the way in which Michèa combines a critique of capitalism with a suspicion of "progress". Michèa says little about American politics in his work, but his analysis maps uncomfortably well onto the contemporary Democratic Party, which has become a party of urban educated professionals. 

Michèa’s personal background is relevant too. Born in Paris in 1950, he was raised in public housing by parents who were both members of the French Communist Party. The Party was central to his childhood. It employed his parents, with his dad working as sports reporter for the Party newspaper. It was a community of working-class people who looked out for one another. Today, Michea lives on a farm in southwest France. 

At the center of Michèa’s work is Orwell’s concept of “common decency,” developed in the 1937 book, The Road to Wigan Pier.  For Orwell, common decency is the moral intuition observable in tight-knit communities built around face-to-face interaction. In his 1939 essay on Dickens, Orwell argues that Dickens owed his popularity to a rare ability to give comic, memorable expression to the native decency of the common man. It is the instinct “that makes a jury award excessive damages when a rich man’s car runs over a poor man.” 

Michèa takes this concept further,  giving it anthropological character. Working people, because of their way of earning a living and social status, tend to exhibit a form of solidarity and spontaneous ethics. Working people rely on one another out of necessity. It is a set of habits that arise through family life, neighborhood association, and shared work. Common decency requires social relations through which people experience themselves as dependent on and responsible for one another. Capitalism, Michèa argues, is breaking down this social fabric. As the market relentlessly expands into every area of life, relationships once governed by reciprocity become self-interested transactions. 

This maps directly with the concept of high density of acquaintanceship associated with rural communities. In a small agricultural community, a neighbor’s failed harvest is visible. Decency is not an abstract value, but a material reality that rural people navigate on a daily basis.  Michèa argues that modern society has removed people from the social relations that foster this common decency. 

Here is where Michèa’s argument becomes uncomfortable. He contends that economic liberalism, meaning the spreading of free markets, free trade, and global integration of markets-- are not in tension with cultural liberalism . He believes these two liberalisms actually operate in concert. He writes, “a right-wing economy cannot function in a lasting way without a left-wing culture.” It is well documented that economic liberalism has devastated rural communities by financializing land, offshoring manufacturing, and consolidating agricultural markets. 

Cultural liberalism, for Michèa, works in parallel. It elevates individual autonomy and the right to choose one’s lifestyle over inherited social norms or traditions. Institutions that once anchored rural life: stable family, religious practice, the local community, have all been delegitimized over time in the name of individual emancipation. Rural communities are left with a social and moral vacuum at a time when economic liberalism has taken away their material foundations. For Michèa this is not a coincidence, capitalism prefers autonomous individuals without a sense of rootedness to a place and an inherited way of life. The tech worker who relocates for opportunity is a more compatible economic subject than the farmer who will not leave because his family has worked the same land for three generations. 

While Michèa’s argument is not without its blind spots, he invites the left to take working class culture seriously. To be clear, I don’t believe the left should abandon a commitment to individual freedom. However, a politics aimed toward a more just society cannot organize against rural morality. To me, this is what is intended by the provocative title. The social fabric that allows for the cultivation of common decency is worth conserving.

Art Cullen on how Trump came between him and his long-time, small-town friend

Cullen is the Pulitzer Prize winning editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot, and his column in today's New York Times is titled, "We were friends for years. Trump tore us apart."  Cullen leads with some background on his relationship with a group of men in his home-town, men he's known since Little League and often fished and played pool with.  Here's the part where things start to go wrong, amidst politics and the pandemic--and the politics of the pandemic. 

One of my old friends, or shall I say acquaintances, recently said on Facebook that I lacked integrity after I posted an editorial from our newspaper complaining about Mr. Trump’s contempt for the democratic process and rule of law.

* * * 

You would think we could see around our differences. We can’t. We’ve been programmed by nonstop propaganda, especially those of us in Iowa besieged by presidential campaigns and the wedge issues they drill home. Instead of trying to hash things out, I just quit trying. My bad. I got tired.

Small-town hacks learn who their friends are. We publish uncomfortable facts of public interest and opinions that often go against the grain. Businesses stop advertising because you wrote about their lawsuit. That I get. It’s a hazard of the occupation that I regret every day. You pledge to do better even when you have done nothing wrong.

The ad hominem attacks have become the norm, especially since Mr. Trump took center stage and refuses to exit. We went from Iowa Nice to Iowa Nasty. We’re stuck there whether Mr. Trump leaves or hangs around. That’s my lament.

* * * 

I know where I live. Northwest Iowa is a frozen slice of Texas, one of the most conservative places in the country. I guess I am what you call woke because I don’t think immigrants are the problem; I think income — lack of it — is the problem. All this talk about bathroom bills and book bans is one giant distraction from how global corporations have stolen our franchise. I am not the enemy of the people, dude — we were in Cub Scouts together.

Coronavirus in rural America (Part XX): Another story of economic devastation

This one, from the New York Times, is out of Bristol, New Hampshire, population 3,054.  David Gelles reports under the headline, "This Is Going to Kill Small-Town America," about the economic destruction that preceded local health care impacts of the coronavirus pandemic:

By the end of March, with just a few local cases confirmed, gift shops, yoga studios and restaurants had all shut their doors. Hundreds lost jobs, contributing to a record surge in national unemployment claims. 

But at least the Freudenberg factory was running at full strength. The factory, which employs 350 people and makes bonded piston seals and other components for carmakers around the world, has an outsize impact on Bristol’s economy. 

Besides paying employees their salaries and the town taxes, the factory — part of a German industrial conglomerate — is the largest customer of Bristol’s sewage and water systems, a linchpin of the annual budget.

Nik Coates, the town administrator, said in an interview on April 2:

Freudenberg is our lifeblood. If that plant was ever to close or significantly reduce operations, that would put us in a world of hurt.

The next day, Freudenberg fired more than 100 workers and announced it is shutting down some of its Bristol operation.  That makes another quote form Coates particularly poignant:

We’re not rich by any means.  We’re pretty poor, in fact.

That said, the story Gelles tells is also one of the community rallying around its own.

On Main Street, nostalgia, efficiency, and rural America

Louis Hyman of Cornell's Institute for Workplace Studies has a provocative op-ed in today's New York Times, "The Myth of Main Street."  Hyman argues that nostalgia is getting in the way of reasonable and appropriate expectations for "Main Street" America.  He begins by noting Trump's appeal to an American of yesteryear and explains why that America is inefficient, even a luxury.  

Throughout the Rust Belt and much of rural America, the image of Main Street is one of empty storefronts and abandoned buildings interspersed with fast-food franchises, only a short drive from a Walmart. 

Main Street is a place but it is also an idea. It’s small-town retail. It’s locally owned shops selling products to hardworking townspeople. It’s neighbors with dependable blue-collar jobs in auto plants and coal mines. It’s a feeling of community and of having control over your life. It’s everything, in short, that seems threatened by global capitalism and cosmopolitan elites in big cities and fancy suburbs.

Hyman is an economic historian, and he explains the historic trajectory as one the that has always short-changed rural America:

You can draw a straight line from the Jeffersonians in the late 18th century to the agrarian populists in the late 19th century to Mr. Trump’s voters, all of whom have felt that the city hornswoggled the country.

His whole column is well worth a read for its detailed explanation of how most folks can't afford the luxury of local, small-town merchants.  In fact, the folks who can afford it are usually living in upscale urban locales and tony suburbs.  The rest of us are basically relegated to big box stores and fast food.

While Hyman is mostly talking about the private sector, his op-ed piece reminds me of something Cornell demographer Daniel Lichter said a few years ago at a University of South Dakota symposium on the rural lawyer shortage:  in the face of population loss (itself a consequence of industrialization, mechanization), rural America has to look for efficiencies in regional centers or hubs.  It's no longer feasible for every community or even every county to have a high school--or other sorts of key services, public (a courthouse, a public health office, a public defenders office) or private (a grocery store).  

This discussion of Main Street as a myth--and its pitting against Wall Street--also reminds me of Sarah Palin's posturing in the 2008 Presidential election, which I wrote about in this law review article.  It's interesting (if depressing) to be reminded of the parallels between the 2008 and 2016 presidential elections.

The FCC's (continued) plan to expand broadband service

Internet access is essential in today's world. If you want to conduct an effective job search, apply to an educational program, find a good doctor, access quality news, or learn anything about the modern world, having access to the internet is imperative. Maybe saying it is essential across the board is too strong, but in today's world, lack of internet access is a high barrier to economic progress.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began a plan to expand broadband access across the country in 2010. (This is not the first time that such a plan has come down from the White House.) Now, their Connect America Fund (CAF), created in 2011, is in "Phase II." The FCC uses the fund to subsidize the costs of expanding broadband coverage to areas that are underserved. Service providers must accept the monetary support in order to receive the subsidy during the six-year implementation of the program. "The FCC has focused on areas that are clearly unserved or underserved by unsubsidized service providers." This means rural America. (In the past, the FCC has also expressed heightened awareness of Native American's need for broadband access.) Service providers in some areas have not accepted the funding and thus are not required to provide broadband in their locale, at least not at FCC standards. Here's a map of "Accepted Areas," where CAF funds are being put to use as of September, 2015.

The broadband service provided under the fund has certain minimum requirements to ensure that access to internet in participating areas is not minimum quality and maximum price. There are requirements for speed, latency, usage allowance, and even pricing. The pricing requirement reads, "Service providers must offer service at rates reasonably comparable to rates in urban areas." This seems like a high bar; it is much more expensive for a provider to bring coverage to sparsely populated areas than to urban centers.

The FCC boldly claims that "Consumers everywhere – both urban and rural – will benefit." I read that as a goal, not a reflection of reality. There is a long way to go before all consumers are benefitting from the program.

On their "Progress Portal" for the CAF, the FCC website links to data reflecting the progress of their five main goals:

• Preserve and advance voice service
• Ensure universal availability of voice and broadband to homes, businesses, and community anchor institutions
• Ensure universal availability of mobile voice and broadband where Americans live, work, or travel
• Ensure reasonably comparable rates for broadband and voice services
• Minimize universal service contribution burden on consumers and businesses.

This spreadsheet shows "High-Speed Internet Penetration by State" between 2014 and 2015. New Mexico was the only state to actually decrease on their metric. Alaska showed the next worse progress, an increase of only .3%, where the margin of error is about 1%. Arkansas, Iowa, and New Jersey also showed less than a 1% increase. World Atlas reports Alaska and New Mexico among the six least densely populated states. Internet access is improving, but the improvements may be slow and disproportionate. That is not surprising.

As far as ensuring "reasonably comparable rates," the Progress Portal says that only 120 service areas are not in compliance. Meaning there are 120 areas where service providers are charging rates incomparable with rates in urban areas.

The Daily Gazette, based out of Schenectady, New York, recently reported that the fund is providing $170 million to support broadband access in Upstate NY. Democratic Senators Schumer and Gillibrand praised the move, expressing hope that it would address a widespread problem of lack of broadband access in rural areas. The article cites that as of December of 2015, 239,000 households did not have access to the benchmark internet speeds set by the FCC. Time will tell how big of an impact this funding will have in rural areas.

In 2020, Phase II will reach its six year mark and the FCC plans to do an evaluation of the program. They plan for a "competitive bidding process" in areas that are still "unserved." Some areas receive coverage from what they call "rate-of-return" carriers, which are not eligible for the Phase II funds, but are subsidized nonetheless.

See this blog post on broadband access in India.

Are rural areas really "safer" than urban areas?

Watching Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s documentary, “Brother’s Keeper”, brought to mind the two conflicting stereotypes of crime in rural America. On one hand is the stereotype of a quiet, pastoral countryside where crime is so rare people can afford to leave the house without even locking the door. Growing up this is the stereotype I was exposed to with the re-runs of the Andy Griffith Show in the sleepy, practically crime free town of Mayberry. On the other side of the coin is the image lawlessness and of “rednecks” or “white trash” committing daily acts of crime. However, it is difficult to really determine which, if either, of these perceptions is true. Are rural areas really inherently safer than urban areas, or are they really not as different as our stereotypes might lead us to believe? 

The belief that crime is less frequent in rural areas is supported by Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), created by the FBI, that presents crime by type and population group. According to this FBI database, violent crime is significantly higher in urban areas than it is in nonurban areas as is property crime such as burglary. Depending on how the FBI is classifying metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas this may simply be a result of a higher concentration of people leading to higher crime rates. But this still doesn’t exactly tell us whether rural areas are safer than urban areas.

Even though cities have higher rates of crime and murder, a new study has found that overall, urban areas are safer than the rural areas. This study by researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, is the first to look at overall death rates for all sorts of injuries (crashes, gunshots, drownings, falls, poisonings, even animal attacks) across the nation, rather than for selected areas or specific injuries. This study also separated intentional injuries/deaths from accidental ones. Although the study conceded that rates of homicide and crimes such as robbery are indeed higher in urban areas, it challenged the common stereotype that urban areas are inherently more dangerous than rural areas. The most rural counties had the highest rate of fatal injuries -- 74 deaths per 100,000 residents -- compared with 50 deaths per 100,000 in the most urbanized counties. This study also suggested that rural counties may be deadlier than their urban counterparts due to the lack and inadequacy of trauma care and health care in rural America.

The study done by UPenn and the Children’s Hospital provided an interesting and important juxtaposition to the common perception of rural areas as “safer” than urban areas. However, “safety” encompasses much more than just the typical ideas of crime. Simply looking at rates of crime doesn’t tell us much about relative safety in an area, particularly in today’s more technologically advanced world. In a study done by the National Institute of Justice it was indicated that patterns of rural crime indicate both the exporting of urban problems to rural areas as well as unique problems. Much of this probably has to do with the shrinking gap between urban and rural areas due to modern communication, transportation and other technological advancements. However, whatever the reasons behind the behind the findings in the study it remains clear that the concept of "safety" isn't nearly as cut and dry as television and other popular media might have us believe.

Federal judge in Idaho sides with Nez Perce to stop transport of tar sands equipment

The New York Times reported yesterday on the decision by federal district judge B. Lynn Winmill to prohibit the transport of "megaloads" of extraction industry equipment through the tribal lands of the Nez Perce Indians in north central Idaho.  The equipment would pass through the area en route to tar sands extraction and processing sites in Canada.  The tribe's argument, with support from Idaho Rivers United, is that the Clearwater River there is protected by federal law and by old, essentially untested treaty rights of the Nez Perce, even though much of the river corridor is outside the reservation.  Judge Winmill's ruling "halted further transports until the tribe, working in consultation with the United States Forest Service, could study their potential effect on the environment and the tribe’s culture."

Kirk Johnson's report on these events for the NYT appeared under the headline, "Fight Over Energy Finds a New Front in a Corner of Idaho."  The dateline is Lapwai, Idaho, population 1,137, and the seat of Nez Perce governance.  Here's an excerpt:

The Nez Perce Indians, who have called these empty spaces and rushing rivers home for thousands of years, were drawn into the national brawl over the future of energy last month when they tried to stop a giant load of oil-processing equipment from coming through their lands.  

* * * 

When the hauler’s giant load arrived one night in early August, more than 200 feet long and escorted by the police under glaring lights, the tribe tried to halt the vehicle, with leaders and tribe members barricading the road, willingly facing arrest. 

In fact, 28 members of the tribe were arrested.  In defending their actions, the chairman of the tribal executive committee, Silas Whitman, explained:

The development of American corporate society has always been — and it’s true throughout the world — on the backs of those who are oppressed, repressed or depressed.  We couldn’t turn the cheek anymore.  

Meanwhile, Johnson reports, the tribe is galvanized by their solidarity, even as they have taken some legal risks. 

Staking a legal case on treaty rights, though victorious so far in Judge Winmill’s court, means taking the chance, tribal leaders said, that a higher court, perhaps in appeal of the judge’s decision, will find those rights even more limited than before.

Johnson's story makes the point that the impacts of extractive industries are no longer seen as purely local.  It is no longer the case, he writes, that "what happens in oil country, stays in oil country."  

Don't miss the very striking photos/slide show accompanying this story. Here's a Sept. 13 story about the judge's ruling.  

Mo money mo problems? Does quinoa’s popularity pose a B.I.G food security risk in South America?

Forget TJ’s butter chicken, Quinoa is the latest food making headlines these days. A number of recent articles documenting its rapid increase in popularity and price are receiving widespread attention due to a controversy regarding the impact of its rise to health-food stardom. Quinoa is nowhere near pushing bananas or chocolate from the top rungs of the moral and ethically debated foods ladder, but recent trends are certainly cause for concern and awareness.

The majority of the world’s quinoa is grown in the altiplano regions of Peru and Bolivia where it has been a staple crop throughout South American history. Often mistaken for a grain, the seed is hailed as a superfood and is internationally recognized for its nutrient density. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization declared 2013 “The International Year of the Quinoa,” praising its high protein, amino acid, and mineral content. The FAO views quinoa as an excellent ally in the fight against global food insecurity. Widespread recognition of its nutrient dense value, in addition to its popularity in vegetarian dishes, has led to a significant increase in global demand for the crop.

The rise in popularity is where the cause for controversy lies. Its simple economics: as the demand for quinoa increases so does the price. In fact, the crop costs almost three times as much as it did five years ago. These recent trends are changing livelihoods in quinoa farming regions, arguably for better or worse. Farmers who left the region in search of financial security might return to farming, while current farmers are receiving more money for their crop, allowing them to better support their families.

In a recent NPR program, Annie Murphy documented the story of Ernesto Choquetopa--a quinoa farmer, who through an organic cooperative, has been able to market his crop to retailers such as Whole Foods and send his daughter to medical school. Proponents of globalization and free trade argue increasing demand and rising prices are beneficial for both farmers and export markets. Doug Sanders of The Globe and Mail cites the benefits of an expanding quinoa market in his response to an article in the Guardian that railed against the “unpalatable truth” and downside of Quinoa’s new popularity.

Food justice advocates have been quick to point out that we cannot examine this trend through rose, or in quinoa’s case—royal red, colored glasses. Higher prices can increase the financial burden in local communities. The staple crop is now less affordable for those who rely on it: non-farmers and urban dwellers in quinoa growing and surrounding regions. As a result, quinoa consumption has declined in the growing regions while malnutrition has increased. There are also environmental concerns. Will quinoa’s popularity lead farmers to forgo sustainable practices such as rotational growing, fertilizing and grazing? Will farmers take-up use of chemicals and synthetics to increase their short term production? Will we witness the displacement of farmers as wealthy landowners and plantations push them off their land to monocrop?

It is a complicated topic; the outcomes of the quinoa market and farmer are difficult to predict. It is also easy to oversimplify. Those who share Sanders’ view cite declining hunger and malnutrition rates throughout the country when countering critics assume correlation between economic growth and poverty relief. However, critics who point out increased rates of hunger in quinoa regions omit consideration of the global trend of rising food costs. One cannot draw conclusions based on recent news articles alone. However, the ethical and environmental concerns raised in these debates bring to light important considerations consumers can take when making their grocery lists. Locavores will be happy to know that quinoa is produced on the small and organic scale here in the US. Dedicated green thumbed foodies can delight in growing a crop of quinoa in their own gardens, but be forewarned---like the quinoa debate, it is not as simple as cutting and drying.

What do MF Global and ranchers in Kansas have to do with one another?

Well, according to this NPR story, many farmers and ranchers "were major clients of MF Global, buying futures contracts to hedge against swings in the value of their crops and livestock." More than a billion dollars of the cash of MF Global's clients was declared missing when the giant trading company went belly up a few weeks ago. Journalist Lynn Neary interviewed rancher Tim Rietzke, who has spent some time trying to reach MF Global by phone to determine the status of his funds that were held in a brokerage account there.

Rietzke is a well-spoken rancher from nonmetropolitan Comanche County, Kansas, population 1,891. In particular, Neary introduced him as from the county seat, Coldwater, population 828. Rietzke explained the consequences of his missing $30,000 that was being held by MF Global:

Well, much like a household budget, if you had $30,000 in the bank and all of a sudden that money disappeared, it would change your personal life. And it changes your business life much the same. Let's say in the ranching business you wanted to buy some replacement females or breeding stock or a pickup, now you're not sure what should I do. I don't want to put myself in a bind and have to borrow more money.

Also striking to me was Rietzke's response to Neary's question about the size of his operation. He answered instead with this description of where he lives:

Of course, we're prejudiced, but we think we have a beautiful ranch. The cattle are handled just like they were a lot of years ago, all by horseback. Really, I guess if you came out here, you would think that you had gone back in time, but in our county, there are only 1,900 people. There is no stoplight. It's an hour to fast food any direction. It's an hour to Wal-Mart in any direction, but we like that.

That strikes me as quite an expression of rural attachment to place.

The next long quote from Rietzke's suggests something akin to the informal order and general absence of law typically associated with rural places, with the final bit suggesting discomfort with the web of fiscal globalization that links his life to Wall Street and European debt.

[A]lot of people out here still do business with a handshake. So in other words, I'm going to buy hay from somebody and he said, okay, I'll see you hay for $100 a ton and you shake hands, they deliver the hay and you write them a check.

And I don't need to give him down money. I don't need to write a contract. And there's still an enormous amount of business done in our area just like that. So this is really a different part of the world.  When I had a hedge account to protect my prices, I didn't want to invest in European sovereign debt.  I didn't want to invest in MF Global.  I had nothing to do with their business.

Possible institutions of rural integration: Catholic church and the medical field

The authors of the 2007 study "National estimates of racial segregation in rural and small-town America," found that towns with colleges or nearby army bases are less segregated than the average community. For rural counties without such pillars of society (and facilitators of integration), I would venture that two other institutions could lead to greater integration in the future: the Catholic church and the medical profession.

America has a shortage of doctors and priests. About a quarter of all medical doctors in the United States are foreign-born, according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal. The percentage is even greater in rural areas. And a blogger estimates that one in six Catholic priests in the United States comes from abroad, with about 300 new priests arriving every year.

In Mason City, Iowa, population 27,740, the Mercy Medical Center offers classes like "Topics for Small Talk with Iowans" and "An Intro to Working Effectively With White Europeans" to doctors from Egypt, the Philippines and India. One of the instructors, Michele Devlin, tells these doctors to attend traditional celebrations and eat tater-tot casseroles.

"You have to promise me you'll go to the State Fair," Ms. Devlin told the doctors, something she deemed essential "for you to understand the state."

In making an effort to understand their patients, these doctors also have an opportunity to teach Iowans. The article notes that 91.3 percent of Iowans are of European descent. While a single doctor won't be able to make much of an impact in terms of census integration figures, she can dispel misconceptions about what foreigners are like.

I imagine that many Iowans associate foreigners with the migrant farm workers coming up from Mexico. They might see them at work, but they probably don't socialize with them afterward. There also may be a language barrier. The relationship is much different with a doctor, who can be intimately involved with a family, whether it's delivering a child or nursing one's husband back to health.

The relationship is also different with priests. At least 800 Indian priests are working in the United States. Three of them serve communities on Oregon's south coast. This has been quite a change for these communities, whose foreign priests until now have generally been from Ireland, not the Indian subcontinent.

I witnessed two priest rotations in my time in Coos Bay, Oregon. The first produced a rather gruff white guy from Wyoming, who nonetheless was readily accepted. When the congregation learned its next priest would hail from India, the reaction was much different. Uncertainty reigned.

Coos County has next to no South Asians and hasn't been terribly accepting of those in the area. A Methodist minister adopted a boy from India and shortly thereafter left for Denver. The church's spokeswoman said the minister was concerned his son was being made fun of in school. While school children have a tendency to be nasty to students who look or behave different, members of the community at large might become more accepting when an Indian priest presides over their wedding or prepares their children for first communion.

The reason these demographic developments might not lead to greater integration is the ease with which such professionals can move from posting to posting. The Catholic church generally has priests move at least once every six years (if not more often). One of the principal subjects of the Journal article spent a year in Iowa, then moved to California. And a New York Times article about priests coming from Indian interviewed Rev. Jolly Vadakke, who spent time in both Italy and Atlanta before returning home to the sub-continent.

In the other world [outside India], we are official priests. We are satisfied just doing the Mass and sacraments, everything on time, everything perfect. In India, the people come close to us. The work satisfaction is different. Our ministry is so much wanted here [in India].

Still, I see opportunity associated with these religious and medical personnel. Legislators can enact laws that encourage diversity (e.g., affirmative action, school busing), but I think integration is likely to be more robust when interactions freely take place in society. That's the reason why colleges and army bases produce more integrated communities, and why I see similar results from the flow of foreigners into America's medical field and the potential for the Catholic church.

Democratist manifesto

Representative Paul Ryan's GOP budget proposal for 2012, titled "The Path to Prosperity," would impose spending cuts unprecedented in size. The plan is unlikely to be enacted wholesale because the Democrats still control the Senate, but it definitely sets a tone and a starting point for future negotiations. Admittedly, the nation's debt crisis is severe and reform is necessary, but the breadth of the proposed cuts are staggering. Five trillion dollars over the next decade would be slashed from the budget, much of it from Medicare and Medicaid in spite of the fact that in 2006 the U.S. ranked 39th in the world for infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy. (The U.S. also ranked first in healthcare spending per capita according to the previously linked article, so we clearly have some efficiency issues. That is, prices may be too high, and spending per capita might be skewed upward by very high health care expenditures for the richest Americans, etc. Nevertheless, I don't think cutting spending for the poorest and most vulnerable of our citizens is going to achieve better results per healthcare dollar spent.)

Unfortunately, those rankings are probably going to get worse if funding for Medicare and Medicaid are cut significantly. And if this is where Republicans are starting from, on top of vowing to repeal "Obamacare," healthcare quality certainly isn't going to improve, no matter how much the Democrats chip away at the GOP plan. So we'll have to be content with the status quo, which, for example, features an infant mortality rate for non-whites in Mississippi of over 18 per 1,000 live births- about the same as Libya and Thailand. (The Kaiser Family Foundation data, which is from 2004-06, lists an even higher Mississippi infant mortality rate for blacks and Hispanics, of over 21 per 1000 live births.)

By GDP, the United States is far and away the world's richest country, almost three times as wealthy as second-ranked China and nearly as rich as the entire European Union (The U.S. ranked sixth in GDP per capita, using the IMF data). But we are also one of the most unequal countries in terms of income and wealth distribution, with a Gini coefficient ranking us among the most unequal of all developed countries (sort this linked chart by "UN Gini" in order to see the ranking). The U.S is the only industrialized nation without some form of universal health coverage for its citizens, which makes the country even more unequal: health is a good- one that many poor people can't afford, but wealthy people can. So much for the social contract.

Could we do something to reverse this slide into a Dickensian dystopia assuming enough of us wanted to? I'm not sure. I'm not convinced that significant reform is actually just a matter of political will. Author and activist Noam Chomsky argues in his book "Understanding Power" (at page 62 if you have access to the book), that real power does not lie in the political system, it lies in the private economy. Chomsky contends that even if a vast majority of the populace elected a government that enacted sweeping reforms to benefit the populace at the expense of the very rich, the result would be a massive outflow of investment and the economy would grind to a halt- a process known as "capital flight" or "capital strike."

Capital flight might sound far-fetched, but there are many examples of its occurence, even in very developed countries like the United Kingdom. When Brazil elected left-leaning former union leader "Lula" da Silva as president in 2002, "fear of socialism spurred a flight of capital, which drove down the exchange rate and... Brazilian bonds found no buyers, credit ratings plunged, and it seemed the country might default on its huge foreign debt." It is worth noting that, according to the same article, Lula did not turn out to be quite the socialist he was made out to be; whether that was good or bad for the poor people of Brazil is probably an open question, worthy of its own blog post or even research paper. The point is simply that capital flight can be a very strong deterrent to government action that inflicts too much pain on businesses and the wealthy.

Chomsky hypothesizes (although it seems so apparent that it might as well be an observation) that if one of the states were to substantially increase business taxes, even if most of the population supported it, business would run a public relations campaign, saying truthfully, that if you soak the rich, capital will flow elsewhere and you're not going to have any jobs. The rich have to be happy first, and then the rest of us might get something.

That very P.R. campaign mentioned in Chomsky's hypothetical is currently being waged full force against President Obama to eliminate even the possibility of his support for populist policies. The president is no socialist radical reformer by any means. Obama has lowered taxes, not raised them, in spite of what people believe. Obama's healthcare reforms, vilified as as a socialist nightmare, are actually pretty weak. He left Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner in their positions at the Federal Reserve even though they helped precipitate the recent financial crisis by allowing investment banks and mortgage brokers to operate virtually unregulated. (Please see the movie "Inside Job" if you have time, it's a really compelling explanation of the financial crisis.) Obama has also remained silent while Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor he hired to put together the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau up and running, was demonized by Republicans on Capitol Hill. Obama is not even going to push for tighter regulation of the big banks in spite of the havoc they have wreaked, much less turn the country into a socialist state, or create death panels, or repeal the Second Amendment, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

But that's not the description of Obama that you hear. The rhetoric from the right, including Republican elected officials and candidates, is as extreme as it gets. Aside from presidential "candidate" Donald Trump's birther claims (apparently he has hired investigators in Hawaii), Rep. Michelle Bachmann stated that "we have seen President Obama usher in socialism under his watch for the last two years," and "Obamacare is the crown jewel of socialism." Business lobbyists, in spite of huge gains in profits, spread fear that Obama is creating an "anti-business" climate (a pro-business climate is just code for lower taxes). Fox News, in the run-up to the 2008 election, linked Obama to socialism at least 35 times according to the website Media Matters. And here's some stuff Glenn Beck said. It's no wonder that more than half of likely voters think that the word 'socialist' describes Obama accurately. The P.R. scare campaign is definitely on, and whether they make it explicit or not, the plutocrats, through their media and Washington mouthpieces, are sending a message: Do not f**k with us.

Our options for fighting back may be limited. We can support the less reactionary of the two business parties, a.k.a. the Democrats, and hope to pass reforms that may not be revolutionary, but at least provide more support for our tired, our poor, and our huddled masses than they currently receive. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats enacted the New Deal reforms, for example, which significantly improved circumstances for the poor and unemployed of the time in spite of the fact that it angered some powerful people so much that they tried, but thankfully failed, to overthrow FDR in a coup d'etat. The New Deal illustrates that successes within our form of government are certainly achievable. And the Europeans have enacted a wide range of populist social policies within capitalist frameworks, although government plays a more dominant role in the control of capital in Europe than in America.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure another New Deal is possible here today. In the 1930's, capital could not flow as freely as it does now in deregulated financial markets, so the threat of capital flight is a very potent weapon. The rich don't need to plot coups anymore either- the sophistication and scope of the modern media facilitate unrelenting attacks on any politician who dares lean too far to the left. Anti-communism is the national religion, and the political consequences of failing to kneel before the altar are severe. So, even if reform is possible, it will always be limited to just how benevolent the possessors of economic power choose to be.

But maybe one day (although I don't know how), if we gain popular control of what is produced in this country, with workers and communities in control of industry, and extend the democratic system to economic power- then we would have true democracy. We could enact policies that put the people first,without being effectively vetoed by capital strike. Ironically, worker control of industry- what we call communism- is not antithetical to democracy, but essential to it. Viva la Revolucion.

Rural feminist grassroots organizations, and CEDAW as an expressive document

Beloved, by Toni Morrison

On March 30, 2011, Professor Pruitt and I presented our upcoming paper at a symposium entitled Applying Feminism Globally, organized by the University of Baltimore School of Law's Center on Applied Feminism. Nobel Prize Winner Toni Morrison delivered the keynote address. Many of Toni Morrison's writings explored the situation of rural African American women, notably my favorite, Beloved.

Our paper and presentation discusses the special "disability" of rural places and especially the hardships that rural women endure in addition to their gender "handicap." But our paper intends to write on a rather positive note, uncovering how the much-maligned Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) emboldened feminist grassroots organization in four countries: Australia, Canada, China, and India.

We argue that CEDAW is not only a source of law, but also an expressive document that has inspired feminist activism around the world and helped raise women’s legal consciousness. CEDAW was the first U.N. treaty that specifically considered the rural-urban axis in its catalogue of human rights. CEDAW’s Article 14 recognizes rural women as a particularly disadvantaged group in need of additional guarantees of particular rights. Article 14 stipulates that rural women — like their urban counterparts — should enjoy the panoply of CEDAW rights: education, health care, and an array of civil and political rights. But Article 14 also enumerates for rural women rights to agriculture and development more generally. It includes, for example, the right for women to organize self-help groups and cooperatives, a right not enumerated elsewhere in relation to all women. Finally, Article 14 specifies for rural women a wider range of socioeconomic rights than is recognized elsewhere in CEDAW. These include rights to various types of infrastructure, including water, sanitation, electricity, transport and housing.

In our paper we examine the four Member States’ responses to their Article 14 commitments to empowering rural women, specifically regarding how Member States have encouraged and enabled self-organization by women. Member States’ periodic reports to the Division for the Advancement of Women indicate that their governments benefit from — and, indeed, seek to achieve rural women’s empowerment through — women’s grassroots activism, including via the local self-help groups and cooperatives envisioned by Article 14. We then consider several specific local women’s organizations, looking at how they benefit from CEDAW’s mandate (however weak a mandate it is) to encourage women’s self-organization. We thus begin to construct a portrait of the symbiotic relationship between top-down lawmaking and bottom-up activism to empower women. In short, we focus on CEDAW’s role not as an enforceable human rights treaty, but as an expressive document that has facilitated grassroots feminist organizing.

Pondering globalization

Globalization, whether good or bad, has certainly transformed the world. Globalization can be defined in different ways, but it is fair to say that the term encompasses processes by which trade, investment, technology, and culture flow freely between nations because of the elimination of protectionist barriers to trade and capital flows, such as tariffs. A 2008 Paul Krugman post shows the pervasiveness of financial interconnectedness between nations as a result of globalization since 1995. And in the documentary “Morristown: In the Air and Sun,” director Anne Lewis shows the effects of trade and labor liberalization on both American and Mexican workers, including the devastation NAFTA inflicted on Mexico’s corn growers by flooding the market with artificially cheap American corn (artificially cheap due to American farm subsidies). The Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan explained back in 2004 that while freeing up the corn market may have made sense in an abstract economic sense, but can be devastating in reality.

Of course, the economic theories that support globalization often seem to make some sense. In the case of the Mexican corn farmers, some would argue that Mexico is actually better off; America can grow corn more cheaply, so Mexico should just buy cheap corn from us so they can focus their economic activities on other more efficient sectors. In actuality, it seems as though NAFTA has not really helped Mexico all that much, with growth at a slow 1.6% per year and job losses outpacing job gains, according to some researchers. But it is unclear whether the problem was just with NAFTA specifically or free-trade in general.

I often find myself very confused about whether globalization is a good thing in the long run because tracing economic policies to their effects is difficult, and because of the argument that protectionist policies in one country lead to a downward spiral of retaliation by other countries (but even this is debated). It seems like you can always find “experts” who have diametrically opposed views on whether a particular economic or financial policy is good or bad. (The Cato Institute for example, claims that “study after study has shown that countries that are more open to the global economy grow faster and achieve higher incomes than those that are relatively closed.” I have a hard time believing that when I look at Mexico, but I’m sure the Cato institute could muster a reply.) I also find that trying to formulate informed opinions about matters of trade policy and international finance to be a demoralizing enterprise because it just takes so much time and effort- more than most people can probably afford to expend. Unfortunately, as economic issues dominate our day to day lives more and more, the importance of an informed polity is higher than ever.

Even if it may be too difficult for most of us to investigate these issues on our own, hopefully federal regulators can be watchdogs on our behalf. The Dodd-Frank law tasks the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to more closely monitor financial markets, which is a good thing, but House Republicans want to make cuts in the CFTC budget in spite of its new responsibilities, while the CFTC is requesting an increase. I believe a refusal to fund oversight of Wall Street is only asking for a repeat of the malfeasance that led to the current crisis.

Of course, closer regulation of our financial markets may help stabilize markets at home, but it may not be of much help to citizens of countries like Ecuador. Although the matter is a few years old, I happened to be reading one of journalist and author Greg Palast’s books, which discussed World Bank policies regarding investment in Ecuador’s energy sector (The section of the book was taken from this Nation article in 2005). Palast claims to have received a copy of “confidential” World Bank 2003 Structural Adjustment Program Loan conditions for Ecuador, which provides that Ecuador must pay 70 percent of any oil price spike related profits to bondholders, while keeping only 10 percent for “social services.” Ecuadorians must also pay double the prices paid by American citizens for electricity, which is unfathomable given that per capita GDP is about $3,000.

I had planned to write my entire post about Palast’s claims, trying to see if I could substantiate them, but I couldn’t. The World Bank doesn’t publish its loan terms, or at least doesn’t make them easily accessible. Searches for “Ecuador” and “World Bank” in the archives of the New York Times and Washington Post turned up a few articles about the rise of “leftist” leadership in Ecuador, such as this 2007 Times article noting that Ecuador does not actually benefit much from high oil prices (not bothering to explain why of course), and a mild request in 2004 that the World Bank advance its mission of reducing poverty. There certainly weren’t any articles directly related to the loan conditions imposed on Ecuador. Without any transparency from the Bank, and any mainstream media interest in the topic, the concerned citizen is left to make his or her best guess as to what is really going on behind the scenes. Maybe that’s all part of the plan. Either way, it’s disheartening.

Conference: Gender, Rurality, Transformation

Here's a call for papers for what sounds like an amazing event, May 13-14, 2010 in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. The subtitle for the event is "A conference on gender relations and the changing dynamics of Canadian rural life."

Rural life in Canada has always been experienced at the intersections of individual and collective ingenuity and determination, of the vagaries of climate and constraints of the physical environment, and of economic and political processes often put into action far away. Contrary to a common view that rural places and the people who live there are in some sense timeless and static, they have always been – have had to be – dynamic and adaptable. And despite claims that rural places contain fewer people and are therefore far less important than urban centres, what goes on in rural regions has profound consequences for urban and rural populations in terms of their food, water, and air quality; as well as for broader national concerns around human and animal rights, land and resource use, and the environment. Ongoing societal and environmental changes continue to have profound implications for gender relations in rural areas, and gender relations themselves contribute to how change is implemented and experienced here and elsewhere. How gender relations shift and with what consequences will vary in different rural regions depending on the cultural, economic, political social and environmental factors at play and the relationship of those regions to urban centres nearby and far away.

Rural areas are as enmeshed in the global economy as anywhere else. Sometimes through its powerful presence and sometimes because it has turned away from a particular place, the effects of the global economy are experienced in diverse ways in rural places. Family farms experience serious debt crisis and large-scale farming increases. Some natural resources decline or become inaccessible, while others take on new value. Old rural manufacturing regions are eclipsed by those closer to transportation routes and previously important economic regions losing ground in the global economy reposition themselves by marketing tourism and leisure pursuits within their communities. Livelihood maintenance increasingly requires great personal mobility. Economic and political change affects a broad range of policies and rural economic development. All of these processes of change have gendered implications. They also take place in a broader national and international context where dominant discourses are produced and promulgated largely with urban places in mind, which then bump up against and in the process redefine historically produced ideas and practices of rurality.

Amidst all of this change rural social relations are being reshaped. Migrants bring their labour, and sometimes their families, to rural communities. Young people find expanded opportunities elsewhere and leave. Urbanites and retirees seek out new and at times cheaper places to raise families and experience a different lifestyle. All of these and many other transformations shift local demographics in terms of class, age, ethnicity, religion, education, and race. In a context where the sexual division of labour continues to be critical to survival, gender relations become a flashpoint for struggles over how change is negotiated, resisted, accommodated and embraced.

Developments in scholarship pertaining to gender and to rural places allow scholars to bring these issues into focus in new ways. Older theoretical constructs, such as power and empowerment, commodity production, social reproduction, division of labour, patriarchy, and labour market, are complemented by new ones like difference, diversity, representation, mobility, and identity. This conference aims to address this broad range of rural gender issues through multiple disciplinary and theoretical lenses.

We welcome abstracts for conference papers, workshops or posters that speak to how gender relations are being transformed and are transforming rural communities. Abstracts must be no more than 150 words and should be sent to rwmc@uoguelph.ca by February 1 2010.

For more about work on the intersection of rurality and gender at the University of Guelph, click here.

A rural corner of India gets a slice of the outsourcing boom

The headline from today's New York Times is "Rural India Gets Chance at Piece of Jobs Boom," and in it Lydia Polgreen tells of an experiment by some Indian entrepreneurs to give remote parts of the country an opportunity to share in the economic boom that has been largely limited to urban areas. The company, Rural Shores, says taking jobs to where the people are makes more sense than increasing rural-to-urban migration. About 70% of India's population live in rural areas.

Here's an excerpt from Polgreen's story:

India largely skipped — or never arrived at — the industrial phase of development that might have pulled the rural masses to cities. Over the decades a Gandhian fondness for — some say idealization of — rural life has also kept people in villages, where the bonds of caste and custom remain strong.

* * *

Rural India was once seen as a dead weight on the Indian economy, a bastion of backwardness embodied by the frequent suicides of farmers eking out livings from arid fields, dependent upon fickle monsoons. But Indian and foreign companies have come to see India’s backwaters differently, as an untapped market for relatively inexpensive goods like low-tech cellphones, kitchen gadgets and cheap motorcycles.

Perhaps Rural Shores' business model was inevitable: turning to highly motivated rural workers who are content to earn less than their urban counterparts. In this case, rural workers often earn less than half of the $150/month that similar work pays in Bangalore. In short, rural workers tend to be content with the minimum wage, which is about $60/month. Rents are are also lower in rural areas.

The company currently has just three rural work centers, but it plans to open 500 across India in the next several years.

To view the photos that accompany the story, click here.

Norman Borlaug, RIP

On September 12, agricultural innovator and Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug died at age 95. Mr. Borlaug is best known as the primary force behind the "Green Revolution," a series of innovations that allowed for the greatest increase in agricultural productivity in human history.

Mr. Borlaug's single greatest innovation was the development of hardy, high-yielding strains of wheat in Mexico in the early 1950's. By carefully selecting and breeding wheat varieties, Borlaug was able to shrink the size of the wheat plant without reducing the size of the seed head that produces grain. These compact plants increased yields by allowing more plants to be grown per acre, while their stocky, durable structure also proved more resistant to the elements.

Borlaug's contributions to agriculture, however far exceeded the development of superior wheat varieties. By studying farming practices and their shortcomings in the developing world, Borlaug was able to help develop a comprehensive set of agricultural practices that laid the foundation for what would come to be known as the Green Revolution. By demonstrating how a combination of hardier plant varieties, irrigation, and pesticide and fertilizer use could be adapted to and utilized in agriculture in the developing world, Borlaug enabled historic gains in agricultural productivity. His success was later replicated with the development of new, more productive rice varieties.


Borlaug's efforts paid enormous dividends by virtually eliminating large-scale famine in South Asia and Mexico through increased crop yields within those regions, and by enabling already productive regions to produce greater amounts of food for persons and places without. Estimates of the number of lives saved by Borlaug's innovations range from hundreds of millions into the billions--a truly staggering and unparalleled contribution to human welfare, all made possible by a dedicated plant scientist from Cresco, Iowa.

Borlaug's legacy, and the Green Revolution generally, have come under criticism for promoting unsustainable agricultural practices. Critics point to the Green Revolution's emphasis on:
-Crop monocultures, and the concomitant loss of biodiversity;
-Irrigation, which can lead to groundwater overdraft and other water shortage problems; and finally,
-Pesticide and Fertilizer use, and the related ecological and health effects.
General criticism is also directed at the idea that the green revolution encourages unsustainable population growth and hasn't proven adaptable to all regions.

In spite of this criticism, Borlaug's contribution to the way humans produce and consume food unquestionably ranks among the most significant achievements in human history--his work continues to provide us with reliable, plentiful food, and has allowed hundreds of millions of stomachs that would otherwise have sat empty to be filled.

Most of the criticism leveled at the Green Revolution generally, and at Borlaug in particular, is best understood as a recognition of the limits of the methods and innovations advanced in the Green Revolution, and of the ever-present need to consider the environmental and human context into which the methods must be placed. Overuse of pesticides, for example, can have negative ecological and health effects. The solution to overuse, however, doesn't necessarily have to involve a Luddite-like rejection of pesticide use; instead, we should seek to make use of Borlaug's methods in conjunction with our developing understanding of their potential downsides.

When he was a young man, Borlaug was encouraged to continue his education by his grandfather, who told him, "You're wiser to fill your head now if you want to fill your belly later on." Grandpa Borlaug's advice rings equally true today--we should continue the process of researching and developing how food grows, so that we might be able to do so in a manner that produces enough for all in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. This work, so essential to human life, will undoubtedly proceed from the foundation that was laid by Norman Borlaug over the course of a truly remarkable and significant life.