Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Inefficient Agriculture Contributes to Masacres
In Collapse, Jared Diamond explains why ethnic hatred by itself, was not enough to account for the tragedy in Rwanda. Already densely populated before European arrival because of moderate rainfall and an altitude too high for malaria, with European involvement and the introduction of New World crops, public health, medicine and stable borders, population began growing at over 3% per year. By 1990, even after the killings and mass exilings of previous decades, Rwanda’s average population density was 760 people per square mile, higher than England’s 610, and approaching Holland’s 950.
But England and Holland have highly efficient agriculture, requiring only a few percent of the population to produce enough food for everyone else, plus some surplus for export. Rwandan agriculture is much less efficient, still using handheld hoes, picks, and machetes; and most people have to remain farmers, producing only enough for themselves and little or no surplus to support others. Instead of modernizing agricultural methods, the growing population was accommodated by clearing forests, draining marshes, and shortening fallow periods by trying to extract 2 or 3 consecutive crops from a field in a year.
By 1985, all the arable land outside of national parks was being cultivated. There was more food and more people and no improvement in food per person. Steep hills were being farmed right up to their crests. Soil erosion began. Forest clearance led to drying-up of streams, and more irregular rainfall. By the late 1980’s famines began to reappear and in 1989, there were sever food shortages brought on by a combination of drought, regional climate change, and the local effects of deforestation.
All of this contributed to the massacres of Tutsis by Hutu in 1994. But what about the numerous cases where Hutu killed Hutu? How did these factors contribute to those?
But England and Holland have highly efficient agriculture, requiring only a few percent of the population to produce enough food for everyone else, plus some surplus for export. Rwandan agriculture is much less efficient, still using handheld hoes, picks, and machetes; and most people have to remain farmers, producing only enough for themselves and little or no surplus to support others. Instead of modernizing agricultural methods, the growing population was accommodated by clearing forests, draining marshes, and shortening fallow periods by trying to extract 2 or 3 consecutive crops from a field in a year.
By 1985, all the arable land outside of national parks was being cultivated. There was more food and more people and no improvement in food per person. Steep hills were being farmed right up to their crests. Soil erosion began. Forest clearance led to drying-up of streams, and more irregular rainfall. By the late 1980’s famines began to reappear and in 1989, there were sever food shortages brought on by a combination of drought, regional climate change, and the local effects of deforestation.
All of this contributed to the massacres of Tutsis by Hutu in 1994. But what about the numerous cases where Hutu killed Hutu? How did these factors contribute to those?
