Africa Needs Modern Farming

African Farmers Urged to Innovate to Offset Climate Change
February 09, 2010, 02:11 AM EST
Businessweek
By Sarah McGregor

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Africa’s failure to embrace modern farming methods is a greater impediment to food production than global warming, according to the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics.

Adopting this approach would help the continent offset possible temperature increases of as much as 3 degrees Celsius (37 degrees Fahrenheit), it said, citing conclusions made by computer modeling.

Africa emits less greenhouse gas than any other continent, though it will likely be the hardest hit by climate change because of its dependence on basic agriculture and a lack of funds to adapt to weather extremes.

“Even with a climate-change scenario, Africa could probably double food production with modern techniques,” Cooper said.

One key way the region can prepare for the future impact of climate change is by distributing government-subsidized fertilizer, said Cooper, a crop agronomist. Read More

In this country, we continue to hear from anti-agriculture groups and food elitists that modern farming practices are a horrible, evil thing. Of course they say this with a full stomach, which can’t be said for many of the residents in Africa. Without American farmers and ranchers investing in and embracing new technology for the last 100 years, we would look like Africa. This also highlights how ridiculous Michael Pollan’s theories are. He would like us to abandon our modern farming techniques in favor of farming how we did four generations ago. If you would like to see how well that would work for us, just look at Africa.