Agriculture for Profit

By a circuitous route I arrived at Vicksburg: a People at War, 1860 to 1865, by Peter R Walker.

This little book is a very interesting read. It presents the experience of a city under siege from the view of the inhabitants. It is a romantic book and glosses over the reality of the pain and suffering with the veneer of heroics. You get the feeling and idea that this was a people of a different era, immune to the suffering depicted in the modern press and literature.

There is no discussion that would lead to a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, though there must have been such symptoms under a different name.

The city endures daily shelling from both the river and Grant’s siege from the surrounding land. People starve and people hoard. They dig into the ground and live in caves.

What caught my attention was the account of the continued production of cotton, in the face of the extreme need for food crops. Plantations continued to plant cotton because of the high price they would get for the crop if they could successfully run the blockade.

Corn for ethanol? Poppies for Opium? This is capitalism as applied to Agriculture. Where is agriculture policy? It is the modern day equivalent to cotton on the national and international scale.

Granted, Afghanistan is a failed state in the hands of drug lords. Afghanistan is headed for a big hunger, addiction and HIV morass. It is spilling over into Iran and all along the delivery routes. Opium is more toxic than cotton.