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Food Is Weird: Understanding Agriculture in the Developing World

2014-08-26 · explainer · John, Bill Gates · 7:18 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development (also: Economics, Nerdfighteria) · mode: Explainer · tags: on location, guest or collab, heavy topic, community lore, calendar ritual

John explains why food is a weird commodity that traps poor farmers in vicious cycles of low capital and price collapse, and argues that breaking them, as a World Food Programme project in Ethiopia tries to, matters a great deal though there is no magic bullet.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Thanks for the birthday present: 174.3 llamas through Heifer

  • ★★★ For John's birthday Nerdfighteria got him 174.3 llamas through Heifer for families in need; he jokes about the family getting 0.3 of a llama. — 00:00:02 · Nerdfighteria

00:00:12 — First helicopter ride, with Bill Gates, to visit WFP farmers; families tilling plots

  • ★★ Having promised it for weeks, John reports his first helicopter ride, with Bill Gates: scary at first, then kind of awesome. — 00:00:12
  • ★★ From the helicopter, on the way to visit farmers working with the World Food Program, John saw families tilling individual plots, a way into agricultural economics. — 00:00:26

00:00:36 — Food is not boring: corn syrup in Pizza Hut dough; John's new cooking-method-plus-disease curses

  • ★ John introduces a new habit: instead of cursing he names a cooking method and a disease he dislikes, like baked malaria or steamed Ebola. (playful) — 00:00:59

00:01:08 — Maize yields: Indiana 6000 vs Ethiopia 2000 kg per hectare; good seed and fertilizer cost money

  • ★★★ John's Indiana corn produces 6000 kg per hectare; Ethiopia gets around 2000 kg per cultivated hectare even after dramatic improvement over the last 20 years. — 00:01:14 · Indiana
  • ★★ John, saying he doesn't know much about agriculture, reports that experts and the farmers he met tie the yield gap to good seed and fertilizer, which cost money; saved seed without fertilizer grows waist-high corn. (hedged) — 00:01:29

00:01:51 — Why farmers can't invest: made-up numbers, undiversified banks, price collapse; food is a weird commodity; vicious cycles for farmers and buyers

  • ★★ With made-up numbers: bad seed earns $500 a harvest, good seed and fertilizer $1000 for $100 of inputs, a no-brainer — except a farmer who made $500 last year (2013) lacks the $100. (hypothetical) — 00:01:51
  • ★★★ Banks can't easily lend: where almost everyone farms, almost all loans are farm loans, so a pest or drought means no one repays, banks fail, and they hesitate to lend. — 00:02:24
  • ★★★ If everyone got loans and good seed, harvests would soar and maize prices would plummet; farmers can't store maize until prices rise, so they wouldn't earn the $1000. — 00:02:43
  • ★★★ John's point: food is a weird commodity — unlike surplus Cabbage Patch dolls, you can't just stop producing it, because people will always need food. — 00:02:58
  • ★★★ This makes a vicious cycle: capital-intensive seed and fertilizer could raise output, but farmers can't get the capital, and higher output might crash prices, at least in the short run. — 00:03:16
  • ★★ There is also a vicious circle on the buyers' side: fearing farmers won't fulfil contracts, buyers give no big contracts, so farmers can't become large suppliers. — 00:03:29

00:03:39 — Breaking the cycles: China and Brazil yield growth and falling poverty (correlation caveat)

  • ★★★ When such cycles break, good things happen: China's rice yields quadrupled between 1960 and 1990, and Brazil's agricultural yield tripled between 1970 and 2005. — 00:03:44 · China
  • ★★ Showing poverty rates in Brazil and China over 40 years, John warns against conflating correlation and causation but calls it nice-looking correlation. (playful, hedged) — 00:03:55 · extreme poverty, China

00:04:06 — The WFP project in Ethiopia: guaranteed fair price, local food aid, contracts enabling loans for seed and fertilizer

  • ★★★ A World Food Program project in Ethiopia guarantees farmers a fair price for however much corn they produce, with the surplus going to food aid. — 00:04:07
  • ★★★ Most of Ethiopia's food aid traditionally came from the US; now almost half comes from within Ethiopia, which is cheaper, more efficient and raises yields. — 00:04:17 · United States
  • ★★ The WFP contract lets farmers get loans for good seed and fertilizer, since the UN is good for its debts; yields rise, there's more food and less malnutrition. — 00:04:29
  • ★★★ The hope is that sustainable higher yields bring Ethiopia growth and poverty reduction like China, Brazil and India; the program seems to be working but is extremely complicated. (hedged) — 00:04:41 · China, extreme poverty, Indiana

00:04:50 — Complications seen on the visit: a woman whose income goes to her husband; corn sorters; loaders paid about $5 a day

  • ★★ John met a woman who went from receiving US food aid to producing it, but Gates and Desmond-Hellmann learned her land's income all goes to her husband; she is a founding member of a farmers' cooperative. — 00:04:53
  • ★★ Higher yields and family income are good, but the project's mission of empowering women farmers to keep their proceeds isn't as effective. — 00:05:10
  • ★★ Women sorting corn by hand to WFP purity standards told John, contrary to what he'd been told, that it was their primary, exhausting work but the money was pretty good; loaders made about five dollars a day. — 00:05:25

00:05:49 — Privilege and contribution; no magic bullet for poverty; the llama work begins after the money is raised

  • ★★★ Noting his own privilege is easy; harder is working out how each of us can help more people lead healthy, productive lives. Easy narratives are oversimplified; there is no magic bullet for poverty. (hedged) — 00:05:49 · extreme poverty, aid effectiveness
  • ★★★ Sourcing and distributing the birthday llamas will be very hard: the work begins, not ends, when the money is raised, and no program works perfectly. — 00:06:14 · aid effectiveness

00:06:25 — WFP can help but he may be wrong; export ban; 44% of children stunted; calories per hectare as a key problem; thanks and sign-off

  • ★★★ John thinks the WFP project is interesting and can help, but he might be wrong; other things would help too, such as Ethiopia lifting its ban on corn exports. (hedged) — 00:06:28
  • ★★★ Agricultural yields in Ethiopia have risen over the last ten years, yet 44% of Ethiopian children are stunted by malnutrition, which John calls unacceptable and unnecessary. — 00:06:40
  • ★★★ If Ethiopia's land produced as many calories per hectare as China's or Brazil's, no Ethiopian would starve; raising calories per hectare is unsexy but one of the world's most important problems. — 00:06:54 · China

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: agricultural economics · aid effectiveness · commodity · crop yield · cycle of poverty · Ethiopia · food aid · maize · World Food Programme

Also: People: Bill Gates · Sue Desmond-Hellmann · Tom Baker

Works: Doctor Who

Organizations: Government of Ethiopia · Pizza Hut · United Nations

Rituals: Happy John Day

Concepts: agricultural cooperative · correlation does not imply causation · Diversification (finance) · Ebola virus disease · extreme poverty · fertilizer · llama · malaria · malnutrition · meningitis · profanity · rotavirus · social privilege · stunted growth · women's empowerment

Places: Brazil · China · India · Indiana · United States

Products: Cabbage Patch Kids

Only in the description or credits: Four-minute rule · Heifer International

Also centred on agricultural economics: Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Agriculture

Also centred on crop yield: Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Agriculture

Also centred on Ethiopia: Listen: Thoughts from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia · Baby Names: Thoughts from Rural Ethiopia · Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Global Health · Going to College (in Ethiopia) · Looking Away · Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Progress

Replies to

Later videos replying to this one

Part of an exchange of 3 videos, 2014-08-19 – 2014-09-02.