Rice farming

Oryza has an interesting article about rice farming in China.

yes, despite all the glowing reports of China, the villagers are poor, and now many are migrating to the cities for jobs, and those left behind are going into "country houses" for the rich or promoting tourism.

Other farmers are getting out of farming entirely, focusing on tourism instead. Locals are providing guests with food and lodging services, hoping to indirectly enjoy some of the higher incomes for city dwellers and in exchange offering visitors experiences including hot spring baths, hiking, and summer resort vacations.

One farmer says the environment has also improved as grain land was switched over to forests and goats have disappeared so they are no longer leaving a mess of dung or stirring up dust as they run down the hills. Those that stick to farming rice should enjoy recent efforts to improve infrastructure and provide subsidized seeds.

the reason I posted this is that we are seeing the same thing here in the Philippines. Santa Cruz now has lots of large summer homes for the rich, the farmers often are trying to sell us back their/our land (which they got via land reform) because they were rich enough to educate the kids, who now live in Manila or work in Saudi etc...

We are into selling our own brand of organic rice and (if we ever get it off the ground) organic veggies to sell to the growing middle class in Manila, but PhilRice is promoting hybrids to increase yield for local farmers.

And then comes a flood...the dams are mainly for irrigation (so one can plant rice in the "drier" season) but also for hydroelectric power. But then we have to let the water out when we get huge rainfall, such as this week's typhoon, or maybe the dam will overtop and collapse, meaning even worse flooding.

We also have planted a lot of trees (including mahogany and Mango) on our high fields...which may give us some income years from now.

Finally, one notes the death of environmental promoter Wangari Maathai, who is fondly remembered by Dr. E for her environmental work.

In west Africa, the trees are smaller and straggley, and often cut down early by women needing firewood to cook their meals. Ms. Maathai worked to replant these trees and promote a clean environment.

Of course, the dirty little secret is that in semi arid west Africa, the original "clean" environment didn't exist (the soil would deteriorate and people would move and slash and burn a new area for crops)...when one lives in dire poverty, one will cut down saplings and take bribes to allow industries that pollute (e.g. bad minining practices, removing hard wood trees from the forest).

The dirty little secret is that one needs people rich enough not to worry about starving to encourage the slightly higher prices for less polluting technology: Propane gas for cooking, concrete houses with tin roofs that keep out the termites, insecticides and fertilizers for decent crops etc.

So I promote "green" ideas to stop the greedy, but I am not so "green" that I think the primitive life of our ancestors was hunkey dorey...