Re: Cotton and Scarcity

[Charles Jannuzi <b_rieux@xxxxxxxxx>]

L Proyect posted, in part,

>>Liebig theorized that such measures would
eventually fall short. Even with such
substitutes, the soil tended to lose its nutrient
properties so long as the artificial divide
between town and countryside was maintained. Not
only was the countryside losing its productivity,
the town was being swamped with human waste which
was no longer being recycled. London had such a
terrible problem with open sewers that Parliament
was forced to relocate to a location outside the
city during the summer months. The stench was
unbearable.<<

....and also his post included this:

>>Second, scientists like Liebig, on the other
hand, supported the notion of soil improvement.
This meant looking at the relationship between
society and nature in ecological terms. The
solution to the problem was the reintegration of
the town and country. This overlapped with Marx's
own exploration of the problems in Capital. In
volume three of Capital, the discussion of
farming is framed within this general dialectic.
Soil fertility could only be ensured over the
long run through the abolition of the capitalist
system, which would allow food production to take
place along sound, ecological guidelines.<<

------------
A few points I'd like to add:

First, when Marx and Engels wrote of an agrarian
revolution, they wrote at a time when even the
most industrially advanced countries still had a
huge population living and working in the rural
areas (analogous, perhaps, to current China,
though China has such a huge population, the only
thing now analogous to it is the Indian
subcontinent). I think the turning point in US
history was at around 1900 when just less than
50% of the population worked in the rural
hinterland.

Next, it should be pointed out that the
influential message Liebig delivered was
essentially Malthusian about soil renewal. He
attacked the humus theory of soil replenishment
but he also felt that there wasn't enough guano
in the world to restore soils. Liebig in his own
field is known as the father of chemical
fertilizer, though unfortunately for his
reputation, his particular formulation didn't
work.

I think we can say to quite an extent that soil
is a conservable and renewable resource,
especially in countries that have a lot of space.

So in that sense, it is not like oil. I think
this is an area that has hardly been touched, yet
it is one that environmentalism of any political
stripe has to address: that more than just
wilderness, we now need to conserve what is left
of stable agricultural areas. For example, Japan
has now largely lost its old farm villages built
around low mountain mixed forests, bamboo stands,
water impoundments, rice paddies, and vegetable
gardens. This also seems to be the case with what
is going on E. Europe now--and perhaps there is a
significant connection to the unprecedented
floods they suffered last spring.

Also, I'm from So. Central Pennsylvania and can
tell you that, although the Amish methods of
farming can be better than the very modern
agriculture, they also have their problems.
First, they use a lot of lime which they buy from
the capitalist agriculture markets. Second, they
use too much animal waste, which ends up in the
Chesapeake Bay and contributes to the
eutrification of this once food-rich estuarine
system. Third, they too cut back hedgerows and
don't keep the large woodlots of old. Moreover,
they raise milch cows for cash (yes, the price of
milk in PA is fixed so it can be profitable if
you can get your milk to market), and, as a trout
fisherman, I must say, their letting their dairy
cows wade and shit in the streams is really
ecologically a nightmare. So they are not the
energy-self-sufficient or ecologically sound
farmers that some think they are (note, I'm not
saying anyone on the list argued this). OTOH, I
do think that their farming methods might hold
some of what is essential to make modern
agriculture less dependent on fossil fuels. So we
could learn from them.

BTW, I follow a flock of sparrows which inhabit
my neighborhood here in Fukui City. They are very
educational to watch. They are quite social, and
quite devoted to raising their young. From spring

to mid-autumn they are almost exclusively insect
and creepy-crawly (spiders, centipedes) eaters.
Even if I offered them crack crumbs in July, they
would ignore them. Then come fall, they switch to
eating seeds (and so they don't have to migrate).
It is amazing just how little they survive on in
terms of space and food supply, yet all their
energy needs are met by consuming stuff that
comes into existence in the span of one year. So
their energy needs are met almost directly from
sources that convert it from solar energy.

Humans, on the other hand, as Mark and others
have pointed out, get most all their energy needs
by tapping into ancient stores of energy in the
form of fossil fuels.

While I don't want to sound apocalyptic, as I sit
here in my warm, lit office tapping out
electronic text, it does seem to me to be quite
possible that we got to 6 billion people on the
planet by living completely beyond our means
because fossil fuels were so abundant in the
modern era. Our future depends on rational
solutions, and so I agree the current capitalist
system doesn't offer them.

Charles Jannuzi
Fukui, Japan




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