Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
thousands of varieties of rice to just a few, led to a deficiency in Vitamin A in the rice
produced. he recent tehnological solution is genetically engineered 'golden rice',
with extra beta-carotene that can be converted into vitamin A in the body. Despite
the fact that golden rice will only provide one per cent of the necessary daily intake
of vitamin A, this is not part of the larger narrative - only the fact that a tehnologic-
al solution was found is important, regardless of how litle it actually contributes to
a solution (Shiva, 2000). Indicative of a quantity mindset - where a Vitamin A defi-
ciency can be unproblematically resolved with simply more Vitamin A - golden rice
ignores the fact that this vitamin is fat-soluble. In less affluent countries, however,
levels of dietary fat are often insufficient. And simply increasing a population's daily
intake of rice, by itself, contributes none of this life-sustaining fat to their diet.
he green revolution was fuelled in part by the development of a tehnological
utopianism unique in the course of the twentieth century in scale. Tehnological uto-
pianism at its heart advocates an 'if we can, we must' belief in tehnological sal-
vation (Stivers, 1994). Applied to agriculture, it marries perfectly with a quantitat-
ive approah that believes (for it is on faith that it proceeds) that when we produce
enough, there will be enough. And depending on the metrics involved, the world
already produces enough food in caloric terms to feed the existing population and
yet over one billion people are classified as undernourished.
Growth assumptions
The calorie-based argument assumes yield improvements on a year-to-year basis, in
the same way that corporations anticipate annual profit growths for investors (the
only people who mater). Yet, while certain parts of the world could atest to gains
in yield due to twentieth century breeding, recent genetic engineering (GE) teh-
niques have done litle to continue to push up those yields (Gurian-Sherman, 2009).
In fact, GE tehniques have pushed yields bakwards, what is known as yield drag.
Furthermore, the amount of arable land is decreasing. In wealthy countries, former
farmland is turned into 'lifestyle bloks' or housing tracts while new land brought
into production remains of dubious value. At the same time, muh of the world grain
stoks now go to the latest quik ix for oil dependence: biofuels. While brilliant on
the face of it, in the end biofuels demand more oil to produce than the end product
food - food as livestok feed, food as fuel, and so on - the billboard described at the
