A study by researchers working on behalf of Future Harvest recently released
an odd report linking poor agricultural practices with war. As Dr. Indra De
Soysa sums up the conclusions of the study, “this report demonstrates that
providing developing world farmers with the fruits of research, when combined
with other measures, not only helps to end hunger, but can also contribute to
ending the increasingly vicious warfare that the world has seen during the 1990s.”
The researchers point to India, for example, which has seen both agricultural
successes and a decline in war over the past few decades.
All I can say is – are these folks serious? Of course nations that lack war
are likely to have improved agricultural success rates, but does this mean that
the latter causes the former? I think that’s a highly credulous claim.
Consider the two examples that De Soysa and his researchers compare and contrast
– India and sub-Saharan Africa. In 1960 both areas produced about 50 million
tons of food each year.
According to the Associated Press, though, by 1988 India was producing 150
million tons of food while sub-Saharan Africa was still producing only about
50 million tons of food each year. Since 1960 sub-Saharan Africa has been wracked
by numerous regional wars, while India has been relatively free of that sort
of widespread conflict (though it has had several conflicts).
What these researchers for Future Harvest are claiming is that India avoided
wars because it received food aid while sub-Saharan wars were driven because
of a lack of agricultural assistance. This is nonsense. A much better explanation
of the facts it that India’s agricultural output increased precisely because
it managed to avoid widespread conflicts, while sub-Sahara Africa floundered
because it devolved into one bloody conflict after another.
De Soysa’s hypothesis might have some currency if researchers could demonstrate
that Africa’s conflicts originated due to a lack of food, but this is undercut
by the evidence that both India and Africa started out in the same positions
when it came to food. This claim also ignores the evidence of the many African
wars themselves, few of which had their origins in a lack of food.
As it is, this study seems to get everything backwards. Peace is a prerequisite
of functional agricultural markets, not the other way around.
Sources:
New report says wars are rooted in roots. David Briscoe, Associated Press,
Feb. 16, 1999.
The Do Good Harvests Stop War? (Or Selection Bias 101) by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
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