Tomgram: John Feffer, Are We All North Koreans Now?

In the latest Tomgram: John Feffer, Are We All North Koreans Now? John Feffer argues that the recurring crises in North Korea are not just problems with Communism but with industrial agriculture.

In the 1990s, North Korea was the world's canary. The famine that killed as much as 10% of the North Korean population in those years was, it turns out, a harbinger of the crisis that now grips the globe -- though few saw it that way at the time.

That small Northeast Asian land, one of the last putatively communist countries on the planet, faced the same three converging factors as we do now -- escalating energy prices, a reduction in food supplies, and impending environmental catastrophe. At the time, of course, all the knowing analysts and pundits dismissed what was happening in that country as the inevitable breakdown of an archaic economic system presided over by a crackpot dictator.

They were wrong. The collapse of North Korean agriculture in the 1990s was not the result of backwardness. In fact, North Korea boasted one of the most mechanized agricultures in Asia. Despite claims of self-sufficiency, the North Koreans were actually heavily dependent on cheap fuel imports. (Does that already ring a bell?) In their case, the heavily subsidized energy came from Russia and China, and it helped keep North Korea's battalion of tractors operating. It also meant that North Korea was able to go through fertilizer, a petroleum product, at one of the world's highest rates. When the Soviets and Chinese stopped subsidizing those energy imports in the late 1980s and international energy rates became the norm for them, too, the North Koreans had a rude awakening.

Emphasis Mine

We all literally eat oil. Oil for fertilizer. Oil for tractors. Oil for trucks to take the produce to the factories. No oil, no food!

The article also points out that we are running out of arable land and water as well. And global warming is exacerbating the problem.

The core problem is seen to be:

The quest for perfect markets usually conceals a global shell game in which wealth is redistributed from the many to the few. To even the playing field that markets constantly tilt in favor of the powerful, and to direct funds toward environmental sustainability, governments need to intervene in the economy.

Yet another liberal is wishing upon the star of a benevolent government! The state exists to sustain the power of the ruling class. That power can be sustained either by force or by bribery.

The interest of the rulers is to stay in charge in order to increase their wealth. If people have to starve in order for the rulers to profit, so be it. No money, no food! This is the marketplace speaking. No soppy sentimentality there!

Feffer's solution is:

Certainly organic farming will play a role here. Although Green Revolution guru Norman Borlaug has dismissed organic agriculture as incapable of feeding the world, an important new study published by Cambridge University Press shows that organic systems in developing countries can produce 80% more than conventional farms.

Integrated farming systems that rely on sustainable energy -- solar, wind, tidal -- will also be critical. No-till agriculture can cut down on energy use and soil erosion.

While properly wary of snake-oil salesmen, neither can we afford to be Luddites. New technologies will play a role as well, as long as they reduce fertilizer and pesticide use, don't shackle debt-ridden farmers to major seed companies, and meet strict consumer safety requirements.

All we need are some kind-heart Capitalists! Hah! These do not last long enough in the face of their ruthless competitors to do permanent good.

This is just one crisis in which private property (capital) confronts public good (food and water).