I’ve already commented a bit on the New Zealand dairy industry.

“China has about 40 per cent of the world’s farmers but just 9 per cent of the world’s arable land. Some Chinese scholars argue that domestic agricultural companies must expand overseas if China is to guarantee its food security and reduce its exposure to global market fluctuations.”

Africa has more arable land than China?????? I can’t help but think it’s a kind of agricultural, economic “colonialism’ :-D but that would make me a predictable liberal.

And the American example, the industry is going to the source of labor. We produce a glut of food in the States, that doesn’t mean there isn’t malnutrition and hunger here.

Large farms, industrialized farms, sure, they mean a larger middle that has enough to eat. And that’s a good thing. I know how much South Korea has changed during my parent’s lifetime and my lifetime. It went from a feudal agricultural society with indentured peasants to a society with a large middle class. And larger scale farming was a part of that transition.

But I take issue with conflating a middle class person’s desire to have a steak and a cup of milk into a “food crisis” or “global food shortage”.

I’m thinking about the New Zealand dairy article again. It begins by describing protests triggered by rising “global food costs” I mean people aren’t protesting because of the cost of filet mignon and heirloom tomatoes. Lack of milk in China isn’t a sign that “the world” needs to increase food production.

I don’t understand how corporate business factors that inhibit distributing milk to largely lactose intolerant populations have anything to do with which models of agriculture are more productive or even better. (Or why so many articles present either or examples and arguments). This is more about current business models and economics.

The idea that larger farms will solve food scarcity issues for those at the bottom because they can produce more food is amusing. “larger farms mean more investor interest because of greater productivity (higher profits)” and if we have more food in “the world” these investors will suddenly begin acting like Robin Hood?