Let's talk agriculture

This piece is a follow-up to my commentary on “Emerging Economies: Good or Bad” of November 10.

What country is the world’s largest exporter of beef, chicken, orange juice, sugar and tobacco? Think again. It’s not the United States. It’s Brazil!

Whose agricultural productivity is higher: United States, Europe or Brazil? You know the answer now: Brazil.

They’re doing it with technology that has enabled them to make what twenty five years ago was considered poor tropical and savanna soil fruitful. They produce “two crops a year yielding three tons of grain an acre”, according to one of the leading farmers; and that is something that can be done nowhere else on earth.

Brazil is larger than the continental US and its grain belt is larger than ours. And it seems that their government is doing more than ours to improve their position as a leading agricultural exporter. For example, the technology mentioned above was developed by a state agency, the Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural and Livestock Research. We countered this threat by increasing the subsidies to our farmers, most of whom, by now, are no longer the family farmers of yore but are major corporations.

The world is changing rapidly. There are fewer developing nations today than ever. But we seem not to be aware of this. We are convinced that we are #1 in almost everything, but seem unwilling to put in the effort to ensure that our beliefs become reality.

I wonder if the Romans and other empires felt and acted the same as we are doing today.