
Turning Ethiopia's desert green - ghosh
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32348749
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MrBuddyCasino
My girlfriend did her Msc. in agricultural economics by spending months in
Ethiopia, touring villages in a Toyota SUV with a driver and two translators
and evaluating the various development programs.

I joined her for the last 3 weeks, and so I got to know some of the guys that
run these programs and the whole cultural UN/Worldbank etc. bubble. I came
away impressed, the country itself is very under-developed, but these people
(mostly) made a good impression. They try to do as much as possible on their
own, and not relying too much on foreign expertise or leadership.

Its not exactly a democracy, and some programs are essentially forced labour,
requiring villagers to work for free and build these terraces and irrigation
etc., but it works and they have no money to do it any other way. Places where
people used to starve are now food-secure.

It is also a great country to travel, violence is very rare and the food is
really nice. It helped to eliminate lots of preconceptions I had.

~~~
msandford
> Its not exactly a democracy, and some programs are essentially forced
> labour, requiring villagers to work for free and build these terraces and
> irrigation etc

Well it's not as though a democracy is absolutely the best either; there are
all kinds of undesirable features like losing 49/51 and getting basically no
say for the next four years. But I digress.

In the case where very little money changes hands (subsistence farming) then
compulsory labor is a more effective tax than requiring cash payments. Any
percentage of nothing is still nothing. And at only 20 days out of a notional
250 work day year, it's less than a 10% tax which seems incredibly reasonable
compared to what people in the developed world pay, generally between 20% and
70% (or more) depending on country, state and city.

~~~
im3w1l
>losing 49/51

Well contrast that with dictatorships where the side with 95% support still
loses, and it feels a lot better. This to me is the main feature of democracy.
The second best option will occasionally win against the best one. But at
least the terrible option will lose.

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msandford
I hear where you're coming from. And I generally agree. But I'm not 100%
convinced that the terrible option always loses. In general it should. But
it's not guaranteed by any means.

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danmaz74
This is great news, how to use old technology when it's the best solution for
the present problem. It would also have been great to have a schema of how the
terraces actually work.

If you're curious like me, here are some pictures of the actual terraces:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=Tigray+terracing](https://www.google.com/search?q=Tigray+terracing)

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panglott
It's kind of weird to refer to the Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s without
reference to the Derg, the Red Terror, and the economic and political violence
that caused it to happen.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983%E2%80%9385_famine_in_Ethi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983%E2%80%9385_famine_in_Ethiopia)

~~~
m0skit0
These evil Reds... But of course US-backed emperor Selassie had nothing to do
with the disastrous economy despite ruling as an absolute monarch for 60
years. And the Ogaden War where US-backed Somalia attacked Ethopia also had
nothing to do. And no talk about the White Terror either. It's so easy to
simplify to justify one's political positions, isn't it?

~~~
sdenton4
Ethiopia and Iran are both great examples of the West propping up pretty
terrible dictators, who were subsequently replaced by something much worse.
That foreign involvement certainly doesn't release the Derg from blame for
their predilection for torture and mass-murder though...

It's important to be a bit cognizant of the political situations, though. The
willful ignorance of Ethiopia's political reality when Live Aid happened led
to piles of charity dollars essentially going straight to the Derg, and thus
into arms deals to continue the war with Eritrea.

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dylanz
[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xzTHjlueqFI](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xzTHjlueqFI)

This video has been posted before, and permaculture has been as well, but it's
extremely relevant. Terracing takes "a lot" of work which is a downside. There
are other downsides as well, but it's a formidable strategy when dealing with
steep hills. The hill in the picture from the article actually looks swale-
able, which would be a much better approach (more overall water saturation).

~~~
briantakita
"Green Gold" is another documentary that describes some projects of greening
deserts in China, Ethiopia, & Jordan.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBLZmwlPa8A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBLZmwlPa8A)

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im3w1l
It's quite fascinating how they didn't have terraces until now. It really is
an ancient technique, its around 7,000 years old. That's older than the plow.

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JoeAltmaier
I wonder. Wouldn't it be better to move all these people to Montana or
something, onto empty land that's got to be better than where they're at? Not
like they're tied to the land; they are all refugees apparently. I wouldn't
mind them as neighbors: "God helps those who help themselves" is pretty much
how we operate around here too.

~~~
nine_k
For one thing, it's _much_ colder in Montana than in Ethiopia.

Next, what would we do with these people's agricultural output? The US
government pays current farmers not to use land to keep food prices up. US
have 721k farmers; Ethiopia has 86M population.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
The point was, they want to feed themselves. Profit is further down the road.

~~~
ido
I think for the cost of moving 86m people halfway across the world you can
probably develop Ethiopia instead (Israel produces 95% of its own food while
being more arid than Ethiopia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Israel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Israel))

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Just to speculate on that:

Talking about Tigray, with a population of 4.3 millions. I wonder if the
equipment to farm to feed those people would actually weigh less than the
people? A few thousand boat trips would serve to move them all. In fact, once
a fraction had been moved, pressure would be reduce in Tigray to house and
feed the remainder.

Remember America took in 65 Million people over its history. Most of those
came by steam ship. Today it would be faster and cheaper by far.

~~~
ido

        I wonder if the equipment to farm to feed those people
        would actually weigh less than the people
    

I would certainly think so, considering how advanced modern farming tech is
(or even 50 years old farming tech). 4.3m people plus food/water/other stuff
they need to survive a couple weeks on a ship (plus then transporting them
overland to wherever) weighs A LOT, fuel & vessels to transport them are also
not trivial.

The farm equipment also doesn't have to come from America, there are far
closer manufacturers (Israel is ~3000km by ship from Eilat, Europe or India
~1000-2000 more).

Anyway hauling millions of people over to America sounds like a pretty
ridiculous solution to me. You think the US government would accept millions
of refugees with open arms? Why did the majority of Iraqi war refugees had to
come to Europe instead?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Remember the farm equipment needs support too. Like that food and water, you
need fuel, tires, parts, lubricants, expert mechanics...so from a
sustainability viewpoint, its likely easier to move people where the
technology is, than to try to transplant the technology to where the people
are.

And the idea is more a speculative engineering question. What kind of
solutions would be more efficient, IF ONLY politics didn't get in the way?

~~~
ido
I don't know, but I would be really surprised if moving millions of people is
more efficient than moving sufficient amount of agricultural equipment & some
farmers to get them started on using them correctly (remember that a lot of
these people are already farmers, just not using modern tools/fertilizers).

Not to mention it's at least slightly offensive & like treating people like
cattle to move them around wholesale like that. Ultimately the problem is not
the climate or soil it's the (mis)allocations of resources.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Ethiopia has periodic crippling drought. So it is the climate. Water is very
precious there. That's the impetus behind the question which can be stated as
"Move the people to water, or scavenge water where the people are".

Again, the 'offensive' argument is political. Trying to just compare outcomes,
to know what to shoot for in the political realm. Remember, these are already
refugees, there against their will.

~~~
ido
And yet Israel has less hospitable climate and it's doing just fine, due to
resources invested in water reclamation/desalination and high(er) tech
agriculture[1].

I think you really overestimate how harsh the climate in Ethiopia is - it's
not like trying to colonize Mars or Arrakis. It's hardly the Sahara either.
The climate is in fact less harsh than fairly extensive parts of the US
(particularly the West).

[1] Israel was also doing quite well even when it was a fairly poor country in
the 50s/60s (although it was never as dirt poor as Ethiopia).

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Tigray is classed as 'hot, semi-arid'. So only semi-desert I guess. Israel is
pretty much the poster child for western technological development of arid
land, with high education and no cap on the budget. Not fair.

To look at it another way, consider a village of 200 refugees. Instead of
importing a tractor, mechanic, fuel supply route, parts, seed, education,
engineering know-how etc.

Consider moving those 200 people to where the parts store is not 10,000 miles
away. Arguably cheaper.

Most of America is uninhabited for instance. I heard once that everybody in
China could fit in Montana easily. There're 100M acres in Montana, so maybe
that's a stretch - 20 people supported by 1 acres is unlikely.

~~~
ido
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
Yet 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.

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tdaltonc
I'd love to see more genetic engineering talent put toward greening deserts.

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berkus
Electricity... don't they have some spare Sun there?

