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  • From: venaurafarm <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] How to Feed 9 Billion People
  • Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 10:18:01 -0500

On 11/29/2012 2:57 AM, Steve Hart wrote:
Yep...too true LL...most of these examples you speak of if not all..and I
have visited many are very isolated and do not blanket entire countries or
even regions but small pockets..these people I include in the gifted
percentage I suggest. And yes look at the mongrels destroying such habitat
to support the western consumerist society driven primarily if not
absolutely by the economic regime we have been hedged into since the Mont
Pelerin Society formed and locked us all in their straight jacket.

Here's more, Steve. A friend wrote this and sent it to me today in reply to the BBC news about reduction in deforestation in Brazil:

"I'll try to find some recent stories I've read about third world land purchases. It's a very big deal right now. If "Amazon deforestation" is at a record low, it's only because they can find the land they want to consume cheaper elsewhere. They've been clearing the Amazon for the past forty years. And there's not that much destruction left to commit.

At present it's mostly happening in tropical Africa and Asia. Multinational corps and countries (most notably, China) are buying up huge amounts of land to plant export crops for transport back to their own countries.

It's the usual development model. At a fraction of the land's actual worth, they bribe corrupt governments into selling them the land. Then the host government evicts the small farmers before handing it over. The real estate term for this is that the land is delivered "vacant and broom clean". The Chinese get valuable agricultural land, the corrupt local elites get more cash to feed their greed and the peasants, as usual, end up paying the tab.

Thousands of displaced families migrate into the swollen, overcrowded cities, where no jobs are waiting for them. But the process still gets funded by the World Bank, which thinks this is a viable development model because, on paper, it results in an increase in that country's GDP.

How? Because when a small household grows crops and eats them, no cash changes hands. Hence, zero GDP gets created. And when they sell a portion of their crops to their neighbors, no cash exchanges get reported to their government. Hence no increase in GDP. HOWEVER... if China buys up 100,000 hectares of land in Zambia to grow soy or palm oil, and exports it, the cash value of the exported crop gets added to the GDP of Zambia. Even if none of the income accrues to the Zambian people, and the only employees of the organization are all Chinese.

That's how modern miracles of development get created. Here are a couple of resources:"

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2012/01/20121484624797945.html

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2012/11/201211714649852604.html

<>

Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 9:53 AM
Subject: BBC News - Amazon deforestation 'at record low'


[China now imports most of the soybean that it uses from Brazil and the USA, needless to say probably gmo and grown with roundup herbicide and chemical fertilizer. LL]

BBC News - Amazon deforestation 'at record low'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20512722

“Start Quote
Regrettably we have noticed that in states that didn't used to have an aggressive level of deforestation there has been a rise”
Environment minister Izabella Teixeira
The latest data from the National Institute of Space Research relates to a period before a change in the code which environmentalists say eases the protection designed to prevent deforestation - a claim the




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