Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Sep 16, 2004 Posts: 4913 Location: Southwest WI
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 6:30 am Post subject: Re: Russians may feed (and milk...) a world.
Comparing this to Iowa!!!? OK. This land is mountains and desert. Iowa is a rainforest with good deep soil and warm humid summers. This is a dry desert. Good luck. No way are you growing soybeans and corn over there without fertilizers and irrigation..i doubt there is enough heat to do it anyways.
Saudi Arabia can grow crops too.
Quote:
Dry Midlatitude Climates (BS) steppe
Characterized by grasslands, this is a semiarid climate. It can be found between the desert climate (BW) and more humid climates of the A, C, and D groups. If it received less rain, the steppe would be classified as an arid desert. With more rain, it would be classified as a tallgrass prairie.
This dry climate exists in the interior regions of the North American and Eurasian continents. Moist ocean air masses are blocked by mountain ranges to the west and south. These mountain ranges also trap polar air in winter, making winters very cold. Summers are warm to hot.
* Temperature Range: 24° C (43° F).
* Annual Precipitation: less than 10 cm (4 in) in the driest regions to 50 cm (20 in) in the moister steppes.
* Latitude Range: 35° - 55° N.
* Global Range: Western North America (Great Basin, Columbia Plateau, Great Plains); Eurasian interior, from steppes of eastern Europe to the Gobi Desert and North China.
Joined: Oct 04, 2007 Posts: 224 Location: North-East USA
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 7:32 am Post subject: Re: Russians may feed (and milk...) a world.
as someone who lives in russia let me just say here that not only is it vastly overpopulated, its not expanding its food production any further than it is right now; fields are being deserted in the area where i live because energy prices dont make it profitable to grow vegetables etc.; not to mention that its freezing cold most of the year; if you think you can turn the steppe into a lush farmland you should really do more research on agriculture
if russia didnt have its huge energy reserves 2/3 of the population would be starving right now
russia will be lucky to feed its own population in the next 20 years not even talking about exports, and only because it commands so many energy sources as i said above; russia was always a crap place for agriculture and it will remain so unless global warming really picks up in the next few years; climate change is the wild card in all of this as far as russia is concerned because if it does get significanly warmer then it's crop output will increase, but not in the steppe
and dont even get me started on the decree to pay people to have children...there's such a baby boom going on in russia right now its ridiculous, especially in the face of the greatest human catastrophe the world has ever seen
but hey, at least the government will have all the cannon fodder it needs to fight the coming oil wars
Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 1417 Location: Seattle
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 6:42 pm Post subject: Re: Russians may feed (and milk...) a world.
frankthetank wrote:
Comparing this to Iowa!!!? OK. This land is mountains and desert. Iowa is a rainforest with good deep soil and warm humid summers. This is a dry desert. Good luck. No way are you growing soybeans and corn over there without fertilizers and irrigation..i doubt there is enough heat to do it anyways.
Saudi Arabia can grow crops too.
Quote:
Dry Midlatitude Climates (BS) steppe
Characterized by grasslands, this is a semiarid climate. It can be found between the desert climate (BW) and more humid climates of the A, C, and D groups. If it received less rain, the steppe would be classified as an arid desert. With more rain, it would be classified as a tallgrass prairie.
This dry climate exists in the interior regions of the North American and Eurasian continents. Moist ocean air masses are blocked by mountain ranges to the west and south. These mountain ranges also trap polar air in winter, making winters very cold. Summers are warm to hot.
* Temperature Range: 24° C (43° F).
* Annual Precipitation: less than 10 cm (4 in) in the driest regions to 50 cm (20 in) in the moister steppes.
* Latitude Range: 35° - 55° N.
* Global Range: Western North America (Great Basin, Columbia Plateau, Great Plains); Eurasian interior, from steppes of eastern Europe to the Gobi Desert and North China.
Don't know if you've ever driven through central and eastern Washington state, but if you have, you'd know that this is definitely do-able in this kind of climate. Yes, the drier areas need to be irrigated. The wetter areas, however, can grow wheat and some other things. The Palouse receives around 15-20 inches of rain per year and in a typical year has the highest wheat yields in the US, if not the world. _________________ Abundance - what a concept!
The Food Chain
Russia’s Collective Farms: Hot Capitalist Property
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: August 30, 2008
PODLESNY, Russia — The fields around this little farming enclave are among the most fertile on earth. But like tens of million of acres of land in this country, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they literally went to seed.
Now that may be changing. A decade after capitalism transformed Russian industry, an agricultural revolution is stirring the countryside, shaking up village life and sweeping aside the collective farms that resisted earlier reform efforts and remain the dominant form of agriculture.
[...]
Russia occupies an unusual niche in the global food chain. Before the Russian Revolution and the subsequent forced collectivization of farming under Stalin, it was the largest grain exporting nation in the world.
Today, roughly 7 percent of the planet’s arable land is either owned by the Russian state or by collective farms, but about a sixth of all that agricultural land — some 35 million hectares — lies fallow. By comparison, all of Britain has 6 million hectares of cultivatable land.
Even excluding the slivers of land contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster or by industrial pollution, Russia also has millions of acres of untouched, pristine land that could be used for agriculture.
Yields in Russia, however, are tiny. The average Russian grain yield is 1.85 tons a hectare — compared with 6.36 tons a hectare in the United States and 3.04 in Canada. (A hectare is about two and a half acres.)
[...]
For reference, 35 million hectares = 350,000 sq. km. = slightly smaller than the total area of Germany. _________________ Abundance - what a concept!
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 7:51 pm Post subject: Re: Russians may feed (and milk...) a world.
The New York Times article is actually quite good. The idiotic idea to recreate the family farm when it has been dying out in the USA and Canada for decades set back Russian agriculture by two decades if not more. The best approach would have been to privatize the collective farms intact as they were industrial farms already. Now they are finally starting to do this and are seeing results. The wheat yield per hectare figures demonstrate that the old excuse that "Russian weather is bad" was a load of rubbish. Of course, the US level of productivity cannot be expected since it is in a different climate zone.
NB. there are some issues which are known to me and which could grossly destroy those hopes, but who knows?
I already referred to Russia's potential in another post. The country can easily feed the world. Like so many other countries can.
ALERT TO ALL RATIONAL PEOPLE: according to the reactionary, right wing bourgeois doomers from the West (many of who can be found at this website), the following regions do not exist or have no agricultural potential:
Russia
Eastern Europe
Central Asia
India
South Asia
East Asia
Latin America
Africa
Or they will say that none of these countries can produce giga-amounts of food without cutting trees.
Or they will invent a new species of tundra-rabbit, and cry foul, saying that it needs to be protected at all cost, and that it certainly can't be chased away by farmers.
We know the bourgeois doomers from Europe and America will go at great lenghts to fantasize their way out of reality.
If need be, they will even deny the existence of entire continents.
We, as rational people, of course all know that the agricultural revolution is only beginning.
Staying amongst us, maybe we could add this:
Quote:
Brazil's farms see quiet revolution
By Gary Duffy
BBC News, Sao Paulo
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told farmers that concerns about food prices and shortages around the world offered them an exceptional opportunity.
"We have more Chinese people eating, we have more Indians eating, we have more Africans eating and we have a lot more Brazilians eating.
"All this, which is treated by the press as if it were a crisis and is sold to the world as if it were a crisis," he said.
"Without any arrogance or self-importance, we Brazilians need to confront what for others is a crisis, as an extraordinary opportunity to truly transform ourselves into the granary of the world, as many people have long predicted."
Huge potential
Joao Baggio is not a fan of government policy, but he does not disagree with the president's aspiration.
"Without any doubt, there is potential to produce if the government doesn't get in the way," he says.
"We are not even going to say help - if they don't get in the way a lot, year by year the producer is generally increasing production.
"If you talk about central Brazil, there are still a lot of areas to be exploited, so I don't have much doubt."
In fact, of the 350 million hectares of land available for agriculture across Brazil, analysts say only 70 to 80 million hectares are being used, and the potential for growth is enormous.
But there is also a consensus that the country has to deal with some key weaknesses, such as poor infrastructure - mainly in its ports and roads - and a high level of dependence on expensive imported fertilisers.
But for Professor Marcos Fava Neves of the University of Sao Paulo, the president is right to think on a grand scale, based on the country's recent achievements.
"What we have seen in the last 10 years is a quiet revolution happening in our country, mostly in agribusiness production," he says.
"We came from being an irrelevant international market participant to be one of the world's major food and biofuel suppliers today.
"So if you look at what happened to our agriculture in terms of beef exports, poultry exports - again we were irrelevant, and now we have the position of largest exporter in the world in major food crops."
Booming harvests
It is no surprise, then, that there was a confident opening for the annual gathering of Brazil's major agricultural producers in Sao Paulo.
The video presentation boasted of a record harvest - while the prediction for this year is that external sales of agricultural products could amount to $74bn, an increase of 26% on last year.
The only threat to Brazil's abundance is global warming
Outside the conference hall, the main point of discussion was a new report suggesting climate change could cause a significant drop in Brazil's food exports - perhaps as much as a quarter for soya over the next 12 years.
However, Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes was adamant this concern over climate change could be addressed.
"The impact will start to emerge with more intensity within 20 to 30 years, and until then, we should be preparing for this," he said.
"The perspective for the moment for future harvests is highly productive. So Brazil has the potential to continue growing around 5% to 6% a year in terms of increasing harvests. We are going to effectively maintain this rhythm in the coming years without any problem."
Brazil's major producers also insist they can achieve growth in a sustainable way, even though activities such as cattle-ranching have been widely blamed for deforestation in the Amazon.
Investment drive
Watching the conference proceedings was Paulo Adario, campaigns director for Greenpeace [...]
[irrelevant dribble from a guy who is forced to say ludicrous things like "Greenpeace is not against food" - LMAO! ]
[...]
Prof Neves says even by staying away from sensitive areas such as the Amazon, a huge amount can be achieved.
"If we have the right investments coming on for logistics, for infrastructure and for technology and land development, the country can multiply by two-and-a-half, three times the actual production in the next 10 years."
Prof Neves sees Brazil as being well placed to help bring worldwide food inflation down by increasing its productivity.
"Of course we have increases that could come from Europe, from the USA, from Canada, from Argentina," he says.
"But where you see the best conditions in order to give the world society the best rate of return in terms of investment is in Brazil.
"If you talk about the next five years, we are now producing 130 million tonnes of grains. We can easily go to 250 million tonnes.
"We are now producing seven million hectares of sugar cane. This can go to 20 million hectares, helping to supply ethanol to the world. We are only exporting $400m of fruits; we can go to $3bn of fruits."
Rising demand
It is not only in Brazil that Prof Neves sees potential.
"Next up is Africa. I think for Africa, this could be a redemption, in terms of inclusion of people in production systems and making Africa produce food and biofuels for the world."
Not so long ago, the Brazilian government's major social policy was the battle to ensure Zero Hunger among its own people. Yet now, its president says his country can be the food basket of the world.
Marcos Fava Neves
Prof Neves says Brazil's exports can help feed the world
Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 3343 Location: Resiliency Farm
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 8:20 pm Post subject: Re: Russians may feed (and milk...) a world.
lorenzo wrote:
ALERT TO ALL RATIONAL PEOPLE: according to the reactionary, right wing bourgeois doomers from the West (many of who can be found at this website),
Is that what we would call a "pre-emptive strike"? _________________ “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
"The time has come for men to act like men; and for women, well, to act a lot more like men."
-Ma Cur
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 8:32 pm Post subject: Re: Russians may feed (and milk...) a world.
wisconsin_cur wrote:
lorenzo wrote:
ALERT TO ALL RATIONAL PEOPLE: according to the reactionary, right wing bourgeois doomers from the West (many of who can be found at this website),
Is that what we would call a "pre-emptive strike"?
I'm not that subtle.
But admit it, once the Russian agro-bomb was dropped in this PO-forum, all strings are loose and everything is permitted.
If we go the route of sketching which countries have immense untapped agricultural potential, then PO-doomerism is surely doomed! _________________ The Beginning is Near!
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 9:25 pm Post subject: Re: Russians may feed (and milk...) a world.
Well I always saw PO as a fuel issue, not a food issue.
It is evident to anyone who cares to learn that there is immense food production potential to be realized in South America, Africa and Northern Australia, even if we do not count sea farming and massive irrigation of desert areas like the Sahara.
Simply because in many of those parts there is no farming being practiced, and use of/expansion of industrial farming in good portions of what already exists in them could create and increase yields by orders of magnitude worldwide. There is a LOT of unused soil out there.
Of course... That does not take into account soil depletion and its remedy, fertilizer, and fuel production, which brings us back to PO, unless you think growing sugar cane in the tropical and semi-tropical land areas of Earth can solve the worlds liquid fuels problem and produce fertilizer.
I mean, it may be doable, but can it be done in time?
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 10:28 pm Post subject: Re: Russians may feed (and milk...) a world.
dissident wrote:
The New York Times article is actually quite good. The idiotic idea to recreate the family farm when it has been dying out in the USA and Canada for decades set back Russian agriculture by two decades if not more. The best approach would have been to privatize the collective farms intact as they were industrial farms already. Now they are finally starting to do this and are seeing results. The wheat yield per hectare figures demonstrate that the old excuse that "Russian weather is bad" was a load of rubbish. Of course, the US level of productivity cannot be expected since it is in a different climate zone.
Its not the family farm that is the problem. Its the bankers. If a family farm is run correctly and within its own bounds its every bit as successful, if not moreso, as a large farm. The problem was bankers got invovled, and now by and large the "family farm" is a bankers farm ran by the people who used to own it. The bank owns it. Our farm is paid for. Sure we have bad years, but at the end of the day its owned and ran by us, not a banker. _________________ "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the
Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you."
Ammo at a gunfight is like bubblegum in grade school: If you havent brought enough for everyone, you're in trouble
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