I think you should look at what's going on with agriculture in India right now. There was a lot of bankrupt farmers in the US in the 80's, and that's happening in India over the last decade. Graphically, some farmers are taking their lives by drinking leftover pesticides when they realize they can't afford their crops this year.

India is, by many accounts, likely to switch to a new-new form of agriculture sooner than some of the rest of us. The combination of bigger problems and a shallower 'tradition' of western farming practices makes that easier.

There was a post here about California covering its irrigation canals with solar panels. A couple of us politely pointed out that a couple of provinces in India have already been doing this for a while.

Farming in India has been perilous for centuries because it depends on the Monsoon. Improved irrigation, better seeds and yes artificial fertilizers have all significantly improved farm incomes.

Nevertheless, structural issues remain. Farmer suicides are not even remotely new and it's disingenous to suggest otherwise. And it has to be pointed out that the suicide rate amongst Indian farmers is lower than the national average.

You'll have to pry Western farming methods from the cold dead hands of Indian farmers. Even the urban intelligencia has shut up about organic/traditional farming after seeing what's happening across the Palk Strait.

> You'll have to pry Western farming methods from the cold dead hands of Indian farmers. Even the urban intelligencia has shut up about organic/traditional farming after seeing what's happening across the Palk Strait.

The indian itelligencia? I'd like to hear more about the commonalities here between equivalent folks in the uhmmm "west"

I think he means people like Vandana Shiva (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandana_Shiva). She's been on plenty of western interviews, talks, etc. advocating organic farming.

well how many are there and how much do their opinions matter? And do they really represent the "intelligentsia"?

Financial viability of farming as a business is independent of yield across all farms in a market. The consequence of radical improvements in agricultural yields lower prices (as a % of unskilled labor income) and usually means that most farmers go out of business (or export most of their crop). The upside is that the society overall gets much much wealthier.

It's an interesting point, but using China as an example of rational agricultural planning is a pretty poor choice considering how recently the famines resulting from the Great Leap Forward were at that point in time.

The famines were from before the rational agricultural planning.

I thought it was clear that was obvious, sorry.

My only real point was that anything could look rational after what they went through before hand.