Latest comments posted about Nationalistic capitalism and the food crisis on ChinaDialogue en-gb http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/2058-Nationalistic-capitalism-and-the-food-crisis http://staging.chinadialogue.net/images/cdlogo.gif http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/2058-Nationalistic-capitalism-and-the-food-crisis The only reason why the US subsidizes its crops is to protect the quality of their land and prevent farmers from over producing and damaging the fertile soil. In the other hand, it seems like China has a problem feeding the people because their government communist policies. Unless the Chinese people wake up and realize that you can only sustain yourself for so long with failed policies because you can only thrive for so long. Nice spin though with "nationalistic capitalism" Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:44:10 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-9756 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-9756 The food and hunger crisis has been around for a long time. It is only now, under the crushing weight of many problems and man's inability to solve them that a crisis rapidly unfolds. We have countries that are overfed and obese while others teem with starvation and poverty. We consume more and are less fulfilled while others die for lack of a meal. What is to be done to enact a lasting solution to these challenges? External fixes like giving food or money provide only temporary relief. These imbalances will continue to grow until we confront the real cause of all our problems-our egoism. We are out of balance with nature's law, the law of altruism. With a rapidly expanding population in the world, we are overwhelmed when looking to external solutions. The problem and the solution reside in us by exiting our egoism and embracing altruism. For a complete article on this visit http://www.kabtoday. com/epaper_eng/conte nt/view/epaper/7771/ (page)/1/(article)/7 773 Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:45:50 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7597 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7597 Asian countries being major producer and suppliers to the world are changing their economic pattern to urbanized growth resulting reduced agricultural land and its produce. Urban related economic growth thrusts agricultural land conversion to cities and building to accommodate urban population and industries. Over 20% of farm lands of developing countries have been converted to cities and buildings for the past decades and Over 50% of farmlands of villages (close to cities) got merged with cities. Check my aerial photo which clearly indicate the steep rise in urbanization. http://www.sadashivan.com/distressingfacts/id7.html Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:54:52 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7497 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7497 Livestock not only wastes one third of the world’s grain but we also waste a large amount of energy during the process of cooking grain and vegetables . The process of boiling rice is necessary but frying vegetables is excessive when we can just as easily make salads. If it lacks salt then put it in water and drink it together. Soy sauce, vinegar and oil are just not essentials for the body and the production of these seasoning products also wastes a lot of energy and crops. We must give this up. It’s true that rice and various vegetables themselves also waste energy because the edible part is only a small part of what is produced. I suggest from now on we only plant sweet potatoes in the world's arable areas because sweet potatoes are amongst the most productive crops per acre and the inedible stalks and leaves can still be used as fodder. Comment Translated by Mike Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:16:29 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7494 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7494 Hi All. In the first post on my blog at thisworldtoday.com I noted that of the 2100 million tonnes of cereal (grain + soy) grown - about 35% of that nutrition will be inefficiently wasted in the conversion to animals. Animals use most of the food during their lifespan and at the end of their life we can only get 10% back of what we put in. This is a serious problem as well as the issues mentioned above. I go vegetarian for this reason and others. I feel great. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:48:13 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7490 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7490 It's not the case that the degradation of agricultural land is only due to pollution, though pollution is a big recent factor. But if you take a longer view, you find that China's environmental history is one of nearly two thousand years of land degradation, over exploitation and desertification. Mark Elvin's book The Retreat of the Elephants is the most comprehensive account of it. Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:48:13 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7472 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7472 In fact, the grain does address some of the concern between market liberalisation and called to reduce the dominance of international markets and the corporations controlling them. However China cannot rely on international market for its food supply. China’s consumption on rice, the most staple food in China, is 6-7 times of the total volume of world rice trade. Given all these difficulties and political sensitivity, I still didn’t find out how China could make “the purchase of farmland in foreign countries central government policy” and what does it mean “central government policy”. Interesting I found another article in FT in 2003, “Foreign investors eye Chinese farming”[4], certainly that article didn’t make anyone worry. Tao Wang [4]http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=China+eyes+overseas+land+in+food+push&y=0&aje=true&x=0&id=030929007052&ct=0 Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:57:58 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7466 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7466 However, I don’t think it is a “boast” given that China feed about 20% of world population by 8% of world land, i.e. 40% of world average in land possession and remain more than 90% self-reliant. Of course Japanese and Korean may have even less land possession so they have to think about cultivating overseas croplands. The majority of land pollution and degradation are caused by industrial pollutions that coming with polluted river and acid rain, only a small share are due to agricultural operation itself, so how would one claim Chinese would “destroy other peoples' fields” by cultivating croplands? Same as FDI in China, overseas cultivating can usually bring more advanced technology and operation to the recipient countries, but in many cases the products could only be sold to local market instead of exporting back to China, because China has government controlled low food price and transportation is costly. When food is in shortage like now, it would also be both ethically and practically impossible to export food back to China from Africa when so millions people there are starving. I agree that China should have paid far more attention to protect its own lands at first place, and hope it is not too late now. Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:57:19 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7465 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7465 I am not an expert of agriculture policy, so I don’t know whether buying of land overseas to produce food for export to China is sensible or not, but what I do know is that probably one thing can always get attention if it has something to do with China. Please have a look of this article[1] from a South Korean newsphttp://www.grain.org/nfg/?id=577aper, which says Japan has steadily prepared for food security by buying 12 million hectares of croplands around the world, from Southeast Asia and China to South America, three times the size as on its mainland. It also says South Korean’s overseas croplands is negligible in comparison, a few hundred thousand hectares of croplands, admitted by South Korean’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, so it established an Overseas Agricultural Development Forum mid-February in an effort to cultivate croplands overseas. But apart from its own website, the only other report around this I can find is in this article[2] from an NGO called “grain”, in which you can see it is not a unique practise, if not common.If you prefer Chinese, you can read article[3]. [1]http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200803/200803040011.html [2]http://www.grain.org/nfg/?id=577 [3]http://www.chinadaily.net/hqzg/2008-05/14/content_6683867.htm Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:55:19 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7464 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7464 China has every right to think about food security, but I would have more sympathy for this policy if China had taken more care of its own productive land. Chinese people boast about how ecologically sensitive and "harmonious" Chinese agriculture is, but the historical record shows that the Chinese have steadily turned a once lush and fertile land into desert -- and more recently, polluted it with chemicals, built on it and generally trashed it. If China is serious about food security, isn't it time the Chinese began to take care of their own land instead of moving out to Africa to destroy other peoples' fields Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:54:26 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7456 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/2058#comment-7456