June 30, 2009
New Scientist reports on two new studies, both from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (partnered with with the World Bank or OECD), which indicate that there are between 400 million and 1.6 billion hectares of arable land which could be developed throughout Africa. To contextualise these numbers, the current world total of crop land 1.4 billion hectares.
This is relevant both for general estimates of feeding a growing population, and for those who fear the absence of modern agricultural fertilisers will spell doom for food production. Even with “less effective” methods (and that is a matter of perspective, too, from a permaculture point of view, productivity is increased by intelligent methods, not oil-based fertilisers), a vast increase in cultivated land changes things. And yeah, there are issues with how we cultivate that land, and yeah, I am in favour of natural diversity rather than monocrops. (For an example of how to go about reforestation and crop development in a sustainable and productive way through applied intelligence, check out this amazing TED talk by Willie Smits.)
I see this as a case of what Buckminster Fuller was talking about in refutation of the Malthusian notions of scarcity and competition underlying all fundamental modern institutions. It is a matter of seeing the system in a new light, as a totality, and recognising where resources actually exist. Because we have epic resources, if we can perceive them, and the system, adequately. It is a matter of more intelligent adaptation to what is real, and cooperating to make things happen.
We can grow enough food. If we do things differently.
We can do basically anything, if we do things differently.
“There is absolutely no inevitability so long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.” – Marshall McLuhan.