That’s actually nuts. global economics are weird and if not for capitalism it would have been amazing news that countries without their own food supply could find it from others.
The thing here is mostly countries growing crops as export commodities instead of for local consumption, so there’s some optimization for climate/local labor costs and a bias towards cash crops. A lot of countries could diversify and grow their own food, like the US has massive amounts of farmland that’s mostly being wasted for animal feed and cheap sugar but could pivot to growing all necessary foods for a healthy population domestically if there was the will to do it.
Countries “without their own food supply” means areas where the human population is above a reasonable carrying capacity. If you start to supply those places with perishable goods from other places, the people there are dependent for their livelihood on the products of people from thise distant places. If those people are not remunerated with goods from the places they’re supplying, then this prospect just creates the opening for capitalism to (re-)emerge.
That’s actually nuts. global economics are weird and if not for capitalism it would have been amazing news that countries without their own food supply could find it from others.
Most countries should actually be able to feed themselves. And actually do have the capability to.
Yeah, it’s just capitalism and how the modern farming system was developed for capitalism that’s holding the world back
The thing here is mostly countries growing crops as export commodities instead of for local consumption, so there’s some optimization for climate/local labor costs and a bias towards cash crops. A lot of countries could diversify and grow their own food, like the US has massive amounts of farmland that’s mostly being wasted for animal feed and cheap sugar but could pivot to growing all necessary foods for a healthy population domestically if there was the will to do it.
Countries “without their own food supply” means areas where the human population is above a reasonable carrying capacity. If you start to supply those places with perishable goods from other places, the people there are dependent for their livelihood on the products of people from thise distant places. If those people are not remunerated with goods from the places they’re supplying, then this prospect just creates the opening for capitalism to (re-)emerge.