Re: [Marxism] Not 'RoP' but '% of total profits' - duh. Re: US profits collapse in 4th qtr

[sabocat59@xxxxxxx]

S. Artesian writes:

If you think subsistence practices, requiring greater and greater labor inputs 
into increasing smaller land parcels is a good thing-- well you're going to 
have a problem, or problems, like big catastrophic problems over time as yields 
will decline-- not to mention the old natural disasters to which this type of 
agriculture is so vulnerable. 

There's nothing "stageist" about agricultural productivity being the key factor 
in ensuring overall social development and welfare.We could learn a lot from 
Cuba? No doubt we could. No doubt the Cubans would like to learn a lot also 
about increased technical inputs into agriculture if only the embargo were 
removed to make that exchange possible.----- 
----------------------------------
If our current oil based monocrop system plays out as is we're going to see 
decreased yields anyway. In fact that is already the case. Soil erosion is 
endemic.  

Wendell Berry has some important things to say in that regard. If the soil is 
taken care of through crop rotation, organic nitrogen fixing, and fallow field 
cover crops, there is absolutely no reason that organic methods would not lead 
to increased yields over time. Such indeed is the case in Cuba, especially with 
their urban permaculture. 

I would also suggest that governments the world over could learn much from 
Cuba's urban organic agriculture program. Cities need to become more 
self-sufficient in terms of growing what they consume. 

I said nothing about increasingly small parcels of land being worked. Although 
traditionally that has been the case, this is also a symptom of official 
neglect. China seems to have encouraged urban migration as a safety valve 
rather than shoring up the rural sector. I presume you're referring to China? 

The article below discusses the fact that Venezuela is providing key ag. 
inputs, but that Cuba will never return to the old model. Although its not in 
the article, these days Cuba is even producing organic sugar.   

Greg
 
Can the West cultivate ideas from Cuba's 'Special Period'?
 
 * Story Highlights
 * Cuba's economic hardship in early 1990's led to reorganization of agriculture
 * Urban and organic farming implemented as well as break up of inefficient 
large farms
 * Some see Cuba's experience as way to cope with problems of future oil crises
 
 By Matt Ford
 For CNN
 
 (CNN) -- Since the revolution in 1959 Cuba has been many things to many 
people, but the collapse of the Soviet Union meant few have seen the island 
state as a vision of the future.
 
 But that could be changing -- at least in one aspect.
 
 As worries about "peak oil" grow in developed nations, the communist republic 
is proving to be an increasingly popular example of how to cope when the 
spigots run dry, for the simple reason: they've already been there.
 
 With the loss of supplies from oil-rich Russia in 1991, and a U.S. embargo 
preventing imports from elsewhere, Cuba was plunged into a severe recession in 
the early 1990's, referred to as "the Special Period."
 
 Suddenly society was faced with dramatically reduced amounts of hydrocarbon 
energy, and the result was a fundamental reorganization of food production, 
leading to a boom in urban organic agriculture, which requires fewer inputs 
than conventional farming.
 
 "With the collapse of the Soviet Union Cuba was in a position where no-one 
thought it would survive -- they lost 80 percent of their trade overnight," 
says Wendy Emmett of the UK-based Cuban Organic Solidarity Group (COSG).
 
 "As a result the priority given to food changed, and it was immediately seen 
as much more important."
 
 All over Havana small-scale organic gardens were started on roof-tops, 
backyards and in empty parking lots, spreading rapidly to other cities and 
urban centers.
 
 Farmer's markets known as "Kiosks" sprang up providing city-dwellers with 
access to locally-grown fruit and vegetables, cutting the use of oil in 
transporting food in from the countryside.
 
 In the countryside, oxen and horses replaced tractors. Manual labor replaced 
machines. A huge program of land re-distribution was instigated. Many of the 
vast collective farms beloved by communist planners started to look 
inefficient, and so were broken up into units more manageable without fleets of 
tractors.
 
 The process is still ongoing. In February 2009 the Cuban authorities announced 
that 1,827 square miles of state land would be given to Cubans with 
agricultural experience or other citizens.
 
 But this change wasn't easy. Prior to the "Special Period" Cuba had been a 
heavy user of oil-based chemical fertilizers, and much of the land was heavily 
degraded, requiring years of careful manuring to restore fertility. However, 
despite the obstacles, they did it.
 
 "I was there in 1992, which was one of the most difficult years, and certainly 
people were moaning a lot, but they worked together, they still kept the milk 
coming for the schoolchildren," says Emmett.
 
 "Throughout it all they didn't close any hospitals, they didn't close any 
schools; they kept going against the odds. In many ways they show us what is 
possible, what a community can achieve when they work together; the power of 
co-operation."
 
 A blue-print to cope with problems post-peak oil?
 
 Of course a powerful authoritarian state and strong central planning made such 
huge changes easier to implement; a similar process of development might be 
very different, and possibly lees successful, in the West.
 
 But as an increasing number of people believe we will soon face a major social 
and economic crisis as oil supplies dwindle over coming decades, many believe 
we have a lot to learn from the Cuban experience.
 
 "The industrialized world can learn that its dependency on oil will eventually 
push it through similar experiences to that which Cuba had to face in the 
1990's, and with similar outcomes," says Julia Wright, author of "Sustainable 
Agriculture and Food Security in an Era of Oil Scarcity: Lessons from Cuba."
 
 "We can also learn that if we do not have the necessary capacities in place, 
our food production system will be caught short, as was Cuba."
 
 All over the world from New Zealand to the United Kingdom members of the 
Transition Town Movement, which aims to help communities prepare for the twin 
challenges of peak oil and climate change, hold regular screenings of the film, 
"The Power of Community", an upbeat documentary that explores the Cuban 
experience, alongside films about our oil addiction such as "The End of 
Suburbia" and "A Crude Awakening."
 
 "Cuba inspires groups overseas wanting to develop alternative, more 
sustainable farming and food systems, partly based on the myth that has built 
up around Cuba being organic," says Wright.
 
 "Organic farming in Cuba only operates in urban areas, not rural... [but] the 
Cuban organic movement and the people within it are highly dedicated to their 
work and will continue to influence and be influenced by the organic movement 
overseas."
 
 The future is less clear. New allies are once again opening Cuba up to the 
outside world -- and providing fresh oil supplies.
 
 "Hugo Chavez is supplying Cuba with increasing quantities of oil and 
agrochemicals, so Cuban agriculture -- and here I'm talking about rural farms 
which supply 95 percent of the nation's domestic food needs -- is becoming more 
industrialized, though it will not revert back to the extreme practices of the 
Soviet era," says Wright.
 
 "Organic urban agriculture will continue and likely continue to expand out to 
peri-urban areas."
 
 But whatever the years ahead bring, Wright believes the experience of the 
"Special Period" has left its mark on Cuban society.
 
 "The crisis that Cuba suffered has made it a better place in certain aspects, 
as people had to become more resilient and self-sufficient and less wasteful," 
says Wright.
 
 "Although Cubans would certainly say that their food shortages and lack of 
inputs has been a hardship."

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu