Headline July 18, 2014

''' FARMING FOR DIGNITY 

SCIENCES : 

FARMING AS ROCKET SCIENCE "'

Life and Living is about Human Dignity and Valour!

WHEN confronted with change, American older folks resisted such newfangled ideas as planting  hybrid corn  bought from merchants-

Rather than  seedcorn from their own harvests. Enter the  4-H  movement, which gave youngsters hybrid seeds to plant, then waited for the shock as children's corn   ''outgrew their parents''.

Later youngsters/students promoted such innovations as computers.

Because America was new country,  argues  Greg Ibach,  head of agriculture in Nebraska's state government, a primary concerns was feeding a growing population and moving food large distances.

Europeans fussed about  appellations  and where food came from.

Americans   ''treated food as commodities''.

Such differences of history and culture have lingering consequences. Almost all corn and soyabeans grown in America are genetically modified.

GM crops are barely tolerated in the European Union.

Both Europe and America offer farmers indefensible subsidies, but with different motives. EU taxpayers often pay to keep market forces at bay, preserving practices which may be quaint-

Green or kindly to animals but which do not turn a profit.

American subsidies give farmers an edge in commodity markets, via cheap loans and federally backed crop insurance.

Nebraska, a big beef and corn producer, feels bullish in more than one.

There's much talk of  China's meat-craving middle-class and a fast growing global population.

Last year  farming graduates  at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln could pick from multiple job offers.

America is  "completely set up"  to supply soaring world demand  -as long as it can keep using  GM crops and other technology,  says  Will Miller,  a  UNL  student who reared enough heifers  as a 4-H  member, to pay his way through College. 

Not all young farmers are as  biotech  keen,  4-H  offers organic projects,  too   -deftly treading a path through the culture wards that dog so many fields in America, including science.

But many are just as enterprising. America set out to plant science and capitalism in farm kids. It seems, they have taken  deep root.

So, rich nations are rich largely because they managed to develop inclusive institutions at some point during the past three hundred years.

These institutions have persisted through a process of virtuous circles. Even if inclusive only in limited sense to begin with,  and sometimes fragile, they generated dynamics that would create:

A process of positive feedback, gradually increasing their inclusiveness.

England did not become a democracy after the Glorious revolution of 1688. Far from it.

Only a small fraction of the population had formal representation, but crucially, she was pluralistic. Once pluralism was enshrined, there was a tendency for the institutions to become more inclusive over time-

Even if this was a rocky and uncertain process.

In this  for example, England was typical of virtuous circles: inclusive political institutions create constraints against the exercise and usurpation of power. They also tend to create inclusive economic institutions-

So a confluence of factors at a critical juncture, including interplay between existing institutions and the opportunities and challenges brought by the critical juncture, is generally responsible:

For the onset of inclusive, as the English case I have mentioned demonstrates.

But once these inclusive institutions are in place, we do not need the same confluence of factors for them to survive. Virtuous circles, though still subject to significant contingency, enable the  institutions continuity-

And often unleash dynamics taking society towards greater inclusiveness.

Which in turn make the continuation of inclusive political institutions more likely.

As virtuous circles make inclusive institutions persist-

Vicious circles create powerful forces towards the persistence of extractive institutions.

History is not destiny, and vicious circles are not unbreakable. But they are, very, very resilient.\.

The Honour and Serving of the Post continues. Thank you for reading. And see you all on the next one.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the world, teaching agriculture. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

"' Putting The World At Ease  "'

Good night and God bless!

SAM Daily Times - The Voice of the Voiceless