Small farm is beautifull, cheap and efficiently.
425 million Chinese peasants ( 200 milion farming households) feed 1.5 billion Chinese.
How many people feed US agriculture with hughe farms?
How many people feed European agriculture with hughe farms?
Is it ethical that so many cultivated lands in the US, Canada, Europe to feed so few people?
Small farm is beautifull, cheap and efficiently.
Chinese Farmers. About 35 percent of China’s labor force is in agriculture (compared to 2.5 percent in the U.S.). There are 425 million agricultural workers (200 million farming households) in China. A little over a decade ago China was home to 700 million farmers.
If we can assume the same level of percentage as 2011 for 2015 then total agricultural workers (farmers & labourers) population will be around 273 million in India and feed 1,26 billion people.
Warsaw, 17 October 2018 Bogdan Góralski
Dear Bogdan,
Permit me to ask you a question. I know nothing of your background but were you raised on a farm or have you worked on a farm? It is very hard work for little reward. You are, I presume, on the faculty of the University of Warsaw where you enjoy the intellectual rewards of an academic environment. Working a farm has no intellectual stimulus, challenge or reward. Is this really what you want of society – to promote and create a large class of people who serve no purpose but to work long hours, seven days a week to feed the world? – people who thereby have no opportunity to seek advancement in their lives? These are the deltas and epsilons of Huxley’s “Brave New World” are they not? Who in society do you condemn to this feudalistic serfdom? The Chinese experiment is run by the Chinese dictatorship; it is not the free choice of the Chinese people.
It is a dilemma. Yes, people do find reward in farming – of being independent and challenged by the act of bringing in a crop to support themselves and others and not being overseen by a boss other than themselves. Unfortunately, this kind of farming is on the wane because it is not very efficient, has fewer and fewer practitioners and can’t compete successfully against the big corporate farms. Those who work for the big corporate farms do so by their own choice, are, in principle, well paid for their labor and, again in principle, have benefits like health and retirement plans. The rub is that the big corporate farms tend to be miniature Chinese dictatorships and their employees are essentially serfs.
Is your proposal to effectively return to the rejected feudalism of past ages really a step forward in “The deveopment of human civilization”?
statistics
Arable land in China 334 mln acres, population of China 1,4 bilion from 2018
Arable land in US 382 mln acres, population of US 326 mln
90% of farm in China have area smaller than 2,5 acra
average area farm in USA 441 acres
average work week per farmer arround 80 hours or more
average work week in China per Farmer ???
Conclusion: US farmer needs labor force on his farm
I’m a librarian, an ordinary warehouseman in the library. My scientific work is the result of my geological education, professional experience and 16 years of very efficient studies. Recently, I received an invitation to academic conferences in social sciences at the Sorbonne (Paris University) but my institute refused to fund my participation in the conference. Polish scientists are silent about my scientific work. Only on Researchgate and Polish internet portals do I have any achievements. Two years ago, my Institute refused to help in the publication of my book and up to now a fragment of the book has gained 300,000 readers online.
I know that the work of farmers is tough but I want to help them by writing about it. That depends on our future. Our future depends on our knowledge and ethics.
The merits of serfdom in the end of the feudal system:
– the value of the property became higher if the owners had a lot of land in it, they were then obliged to high obligations. Thus, the value of property grew with the number of settlers – its production grew,
– support received from the owners: free houses, home repairs, free domestic cattle, seed for sowing,
-with disasters,
– food during crop failure.
The serf peasant paid for land, buildings, livestock, care for disasters, food during crop failure, work on the property of his master. A farmer who has a farm does not carry out his labor personally, but through a servant, which he maintains for that purpose. At the same time, he uses the draft cattle assigned to him by the owner of the land. The size of the serfdom is usually adapted to the area of land that the villagers have been allocated, and this land is generous enough not only for the payment and catering of a servant, maintained for the court, but also for the needs of the peasant himself and his family.