Green Revolution

Mexican agriculture in particular.

And, you know, we talk about the Green Revolution

in the

United States.

Right.

You know, to kind of demonstrate to developing countries that they were between communism and capitalism that we can make sure you stay full.

So the whole idea of the Green Revolution was actually not has nothing to do with photosynthesis or chlorophyll or green things associated with plants.

It had everything to do in contrast with the red of the Soviet Union.

If I think about Africa, then I'm thinking about the World Bank or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or Rothschild.

as it was, you're sort of forcing the Green Revolution onto Africa.

And so I wonder what we can learn from that concept, whether that concept is relevant to Britain, whether we have sort of similar power and profit challenges, I guess, in Britain, and how we can transpose the value of that phrase and idea to here.

Yeah, I think there's also dumping, you know, from many countries on Africa, which, you know, undermines their sovereignty.

And then I was able to make an analysis to say, OK, if this is what led us here, where are we now? Are

you talking about like the Green Revolution with movement toward mechanization of agriculture?

Oh, there are so many things.

It really starts back in the 1920s and 30s.

And our philosophy in World War II shifted to more food fast.

we really moved into this mindset of we need more.

And so with that shift in the mindset of we need more also came along the Green Revolution, which introduced chemicals, which introduced mechanization.

And both the chemicals and the mechanization now gave us abundance of food because we could control and produce a lot more than we had previously been producing within the same acres.

Let the people starve because we just we can't do it.

And so what they didn't count on was the Green Revolution.

The Rockefeller Foundation found Norman Borlaug, this plant geneticist, wrestler, tough, tough, tough, tough guy, never give up, who went to Mexico.

And for 10 years, he spent laborious, laborious seasons breeding first wheat and then eventually rice and corn to really understand how we can maximize yield, how we can get the most yield out of an acre of land.

I mean, we have 500 calories more of corn per person in America than we used to have, and it's crazy, and we're eating it.

This saved a billion people from starving.

It was a huge win, right, obviously, because if we didn't have the Green Revolution, we would have had massive famine and disruption and war and social disruption.

So give credit to it, but it led to a massive loss of biodiversity.

and by doing that you intentionally preserve your seed crop you potentially preserve your food you You intentionally share back with the planet what the planet has shared with you because you're connected in some way that everyone understands in some manner, some better than others.

You know, when you're in Indonesia and you have water rituals or in sri lanka where you have water ceremonies that have to protect the amount of water available to farmers these things stop being business propositions and start being run by priests that doesn't stop you know all kinds of politics as usual all kinds of crap going on but you know it allows the subak water system to have survived the dutch colonization the japanese invasion world war ii the brilliance of the Green Revolution and, of course, postmodern capitalism in some way, even though all those things are clearly impacting the lives of people in Bali and farming rice in Bali.

Somehow their mutual water system is able to survive because it relies on a different set of priorities.

And also a sense of balance, ultimately.