Professional Documents
Culture Documents
(Source: CIA World Factbook 2008)
‘Comment’
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8 – Many farmers are abandoning traditional crops and attempting to grow higher value exotic
crops.
9 – The majority of small and marginal farmers have to sell their freshly harvested crop in order to
raise money to pay off debts; making these farmers consumers rather than producers.
10 - Increasing encroachment of seawater into delta areas has deposited sea-salt into topsoils.
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5 – Extensive droughts in some areas have made crop production impossible, or at best very limited
and dry soils that have poor structure are eroded by winds, often creating dustbowls.
o All plants including drought resistant varieties need moisture from seed emergence through to
harvest and although many plants emerge and start to grow they receive insufficient moisture
during rapid growth periods. The plants dry out causing plants to ripen too early and yields are
much lower. In many areas now, soils have become too dry and farmers have abandoned
production.
o Where areas have remained excessively dry and winds have increased, poorly structured
topsoils are blown away, often exposing the subsoil.
o The ‘International Water Resource Management Institute’ has predicted that by the year 2025,
Pakistan, South Africa, and large parts of India and China will have scarce water resources. This,
on its own will have a major influence on food production in some of the world’s most populated
areas.
o The ‘World Resource Institute’ (UNEP) has stated that by 2025, 40% of the world’s population
will be living in countries experiencing water shortages.
6 – Poor farming practices have reduced the structure and fertility of agricultural soils.
o Having been encouraged to grow hybrid varieties of crops, using expensive inorganic fertilisers,
farmers have stopped crop rotations and land fallowing and are permanently cultivating one area
only. In these areas constant cultivating without incorporating organic matter has left the soil
structures weak and liable to erosion.
o Inorganic fertilisers are very expensive and few farmers will purchase these and thus hybrid
varieties have been planted with the results that yields are very low and soil fertility is negligible
and unsuitable for agricultural production.
o Traditional hardy varieties have been abandoned and many of these are now lost.
o Few farmers take time to ‘contour’ plant their crops which would restrict rainwater flow and fewer
farmers fail to take interest in contour cultivating and terraced crop production.
7 – The state of many ‘farm to market’ roads is very bad, causing great difficulty in transporting
produce to markets. Many areas do not have farm to market roads.
o Many of the farmers live far from the main highways and due to debts, have to sell their
harvested crops for cash and where farm to market roads exist, they are very poor and liable to
flooding and very few transporters will go to the farms.
o The high cost of fuel for transport has reduced the distance that goods transporters’ will travel
and this has raised costs to the farmers where it becomes not worth the farmers expense to take
crops to markets.
8 – Many farmers are abandoning traditional crops and attempting to grow higher value exotic
crops.
o With many small and marginal farmers struggling to gain sufficient income from traditional crops,
they have often turned to exotic crops in the expectation that these will provide the income
required. Exotic crop require high quality soil and usually, the use of fertilisers and these farmers
have neither.
o Some of the crops grown have been for the bio-fuel market and this has reduced the availability
of food crops.
9 – The majority of small and marginal farmers have to sell their freshly harvested crop in order to
raise money to pay off debts; making these farmers consumers rather than producers.
o All over Asia and Africa, small and marginal farmers have to sell their crops as soon as they are
harvested because of heavy debts incurred during a growing season and as many farmers only
grow one crop a year, they struggle. Goods and domestic foods are purchased (on credit) during
an off season and school fees have to be paid and the only means of paying off these debts is to
sell the newly harvested crops. Once the harvested crop is sold the farmers look for work outside
of the farm to be able to buy food until a next harvest.
o The value of freshly harvested (and dried) crops are very low value, as there is often a glut and
wholesalers take advantage of this and store the dried crops until market prices rise.
o Any secondary crops now grown are as part time activities, further reducing quality and quantity.
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10 – Increasing encroachment of seawater into delta areas has deposited sea-salt into topsoils.
o In Asia and other areas, the rising level of the sea has caused low level deltas to be saturated
with saline water, which crops cannot tolerate. Delta areas in Asia are the main rice producing
areas and rice is the staple food.
o Where the sea is encroaching on fragile shores, concerns are being raised about the level of
‘liquefaction’ further inland and raising the risk of coastal erosion, especially where higher tropical
rainfall patterns are being experienced. Liquefaction is where the percentage of liquid in the soils
equals or nearly equals the amount of solids in the soil; making it very prone to movement should
the level of moisture rise to critical levels.
o In many parts of Asia, the temperature of the sea is also rising and this has a detrimental effect
on the coral reefs. Excessive temperature increases in coral, causes the coral to die and the
coral reefs are important breeding grounds for fish, especially in areas where overfishing is
occurring.
o Although many governments and researchers are trying to improve the ‘upland’ rice varieties; if
successful, these will not be widely available for many years.
o About 60% of the world’s population reside on or near the coastal areas and as coastal erosion
increases and sea levels rise, many of these residents will move inland and settle on agricultural
land resources.
Given the problems associated with food production (and the majority of the world’s food still comes from
the small and marginal farmers), two questions come to mind uppermost.
1. At what point do small farmers abandon agricultural production and turn to other sources of income
generation or migrate and is this predictable?
a. Given that many small and marginal farmers will abandon food production, as the effects of
climate change take hold, at what point will the loss of production start to have serious
consequences on the health and welfare of urban dwellers? Given also the fact that the
urban populations are dramatically increasing to a point where general and social service
provision is starting to fail.
2. Is it possible to reverse the status of small and marginal farmers?
a. Although there are many natural resources development organisations working to assist the
small and marginal farmers to improve production methods, these are very localised and
mostly ineffective and many do not consider the climatic changes that will occur during the
following decades.
For all of the doubters about climate change, there are simply too many indicators that show the world’s
climate has changed and will change further and that for all of those that expound doom and gloom, it is
not the planet that is at risk it is those that dwell on the planet, who have exacerbated a perfectly normal
occurrence that has happened before, as the poles melt and reform.
twofer’s comments
Of crucial interest to planners will be
the availability of water sources and
this map shows the areas where
there are existing water scarcity
concerns and ‘hot spots’ likely to
produce migrants from water
scarcity.
Water scarcity also influences food
security and this is of major concern
to developed nations that will have to
provide the support infrastructure for
those that are in dire need.
twofer’s comments
This map shows the (predicted)
temperature changes as at 2050, with
the scale showing that all areas can
expect a rise in ambient temperature.
The red areas in the northern
hemisphere therefore predict that the
ice will continue to melt, causing
further rises in sea levels and sea
temperatures.
A rise in sea temperatures will directly
affect food supplies.
Given the information currently and universally available it should be possible to predict areas that are most
at risk from community drift and it should also be possible to determine where drifting communities could be
directed towards. The alternative is to ignore the plight of at risk communities and leave natural selection to
take its toll on these communities and most would agree that this would be morally incorrect.
References:
- The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) (Switzerland) – Migration Research Series.
- Harvard Environmental Law Review (USA) - Confronting a Rising Tide: A Proposal for a Convention on
Climate change Refugees’, Bonnie Docherty and Tyler Giannini .
- CNA Corporation (Center for Naval Analyses) (USA) – General Charles F. Wald (USAF) Rtd. National
Security and the Threat of Climate Change.
- CIA World Fact Book.
- United Nations statistics.
- USA Department of Agriculture.
- International Water Resource Management Institute.
- Earth Policy Institute.
- World Resource Institute (UNEP).
twofer’s comments