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Yes, moving 200 people (and probably also 2,000 or even 20,000) is easier than building the required infrastructure to grow food for them. But after a certain p
by ido 12y ago
Yes, moving 200 people (and probably also 2,000 or even 20,000) is easier than building the required infrastructure to grow food for them. But after a certain point moving more people grows costs approximately linearly where as growing food via modern farming does not.
That's how modern rich countries like the USA can be net food exporters while employing less than 2% of the population (you will find similar figures in other developed countries). A village of 200 people in the middle of nowhere probably can't be fed by 4 farmers regardless of how much equipment they have.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoYet those people in Ethiopia were using hand labor and baskets to build dams. That doesn't look like scalable western farming. It looks a lot harder. So the argument "Move them to the West where modern farming techniques are available" now becomes very, very much more efficient that leaving them where they are.