Your opinion about Food Is Weird: Understanding Agriculture in the Developing World
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vlogbrothers- Friendly reminder that educational videos are ALLOWED TO BE OVER 4 MINUTES. NO PUNISHMENT. kthxbai. -John
vlogbrothers- In which +John Green flies in a helicopter with Bill Gates in Ethiopia, investigates a new form of cursing, and discusses agricultural reform--specifically, how the UN's World Food Program is trying to improve maize yields in Ethiopia. If you can break the vicious cycle of low incomes leading to low harvests, agricultural productivity per hectacre can increase dramatically, as we've seen in China and Brazil. It seems boring, I know, but this is a big reason hundreds of millions of people have emerged from poverty in the past 30 years. So hopefully it will happen in Ethiopia! But, as usual, the truth resists simplicity.FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS ARE ALLOWED TO BE MORE THAN FOUR MINUTES LONG.The Gates Foundation: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/The United Nations World Food Programme: http://www.wfp.org/(Why all those extra letters in Programme, United Nations? AMERICA CAN SPELL PROGRAM IN JUST SEVEN LETTERS. WE'RE NUMBER ONE. WE'RE NUMBER ONE. No one reads to the end of the description so I can just ramble on down here and say whatever I want.)
vlogbrothers- Hectare. HECTARE. HECK-TARE. Gah. I am a grapefruit.(Mispronunciation background: Mispronouncing things is my thing, but the hectare example is particularly glaring, because I've been mispronouncing it--consistently--since I was in fourth grade. I just cannot get it out of my head that since it is a measurement of land area, it must be a kind of acre. I am sorry and embarrassed and mortified. Fortunately, it's not like BILL GATES IS GOING TO SEE THIS VIDEO OR ANYTHING.) -John
Rockerchavnerdemo- John is replacing his swears!? Man, he's a real heck-taker.
Blah username- I think John is stressed. The puff is very puffy today.
Rachel Maria- this is what inspired my research project for my AP class and its really awesome so thanks John!
Katerine459- I wonder what all the soil there supports. Because corn, corn, and more corn is not a healthy system, for the land, for the people on the land, or for the people eating the food. Isn't Ethiopia fairly large, geographically? It just sounds to me like it might be better to use a combined model, with some land devoted to grasses and various animals, like the model in "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Animals produce fertilizer, which can then be used for growing plants that humans can consume.Of course, it's another thing if the climate or soil there doesn't support grasses (I wouldn't know), but it definitely impressed me by how much better a model it is, than just corn corn corn corn corn soybeans corn corn...
nilesrock024- As someone with a corn allergy, let me assure you: EVERYTHING HAS CORN SYRUP IN IT.
John Moeller- Maybe teach seed saving instead of buying seed? Would that not eliminate some need for loans? American farmers, until recently, saved seed.
rachelvirienna- Does "American seed" mean GMO seed? Just asking.
Linea Kristensen- I love that you use the metrick system(sorry, i know my spelling is off) but the metrick system is logic. Not only is it the system we use in my(logic)country, it is.... wait for it .... LOGIC!!! thank you :) (water freezes at 0 and boils at 100, how czn you argument against that?!)
Nonamearisto- That's it. John Green's going out the window in a piece of satire I'm writing. Crashing through the roof of the finest cultural institution in all of Indianapolis: The Museum of Jagged Glass. It's called "Culture Wars."
Jaelinn Farmer- My birthday is August 26 too :P YAAAAA HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN
shadesofpemberley- Why did the Ethiopian government ban corn exports?
Clarence LeBlanc- OK let me be Mr. Horrible Horrific. Is there not too many people on the planet? Ethiopia's population may be maxed out based on 2000 per hectare. They make 6000 will they not be in the same boat in no time but only with 3 times the population? I have 40 bucks a month on my CC going to help a child in Bangladesh. I was told educate a girl and she will have 2 children as apposed to 5...that is math I like. If an aid organization focused on feeding what is there in the third world and keeping birth rates low....very low. I'm guessing money would pour in.
Dannon Day- This video is 7 mins…
tjbeson- No GMO's !!!
Atom Eve- John, I'm waiting patiently for your punishment video.
Sonam Dolkar Penjore- what is the sexiest problem the world is facing?
joselotl- Maybe this was asked before in the comment section but. Where does the good seeds that John is talking about come from? Can they just buy the seeds once and then use their own in the next years?
Maxawe Some- Hectacre FTW !!!
Paul Anstis- In which John Green flies in a helicopter with Bill Gates in Ethiopia, investigates a new form of cursing, and discusses agricultural reform--specifically, how the UN's World Food Program is trying to improve maize yields in Ethiopia. If you can break the vicious cycle of low incomes leading to low harvests,
shasta165- This is the man that killed alaska.
8BitMinotaur- Hydroponics / aquaponics might have an impact on improving agricultural production. Both home and commercial farms could benefit from appropriately scaled systems.Great video!
meeeee- THIS VIDEO IS OVER THE LIMIT. PUNISHMENT TIME
Matthew Middleton- John, I like your videos, and you seem like a very insightful guy. While I wholeheartedly agree that we need to change how we finance farming (in North America, as well as in Africa), I disagree with the "more fertilizer" approach.While it might provide short-term gains, it isn't sustainable. For one, it changes what they rely on Western nations for; instead of getting food shipments, they'd get fertilizer. How is that any different? Secondly, large-scale application of artificial fertilizers actually cause long-term problems that we've only realized in the last 20-30 years. For example, algae blooms occur where rivers pour in to large bodies of water, when there are large farms upstream. The problem is, a lot of the fertilizer doesn't get taken up by the plants, and because it's water soluble, it washes away rather than just sitting in the soil. Furthermore, and this will sound a bit counter-intuitive, artificial fertilizers actually reduce the overall soil fertility, which will lead to desertification in the long-term. See, what fertilizer that the plants take up is great for growing the plants big, and doing it quickly. The problem is, plants will continue to need food. If the fertilizer is all gone, they'll leech it from the land. Since they're bigger than they would've grown on their own, they suck up way more naturally-occuring nutrients than they would have otherwise. This means that, once the plant is dead, the soil is sucked dry of nutrients.In my view, we should be helping them avoid our mistakes: skip monocultures, since that's just putting all your eggs in one basket; build soil fertility, which is WAY more sustainable and less environmentally toxic; whenever possible, breed your own seed that is adapted to the local conditions, which imported seed can't be.
LiamNosliw- Maize is corn, right?
Aykın Çakaloz- 1:25 This graph is in HECTARES not hectacres, and the figures seem to be correct for hectares too. Yet, John is using hectacre in speech for some reason. This gives very wrong values throughout the video. So each time Johns verbally gives you a hectacre value, either assume it is hectare or divide it by 40
Povertyisa bich- Diversify, seriously, if you can't sell your crop, make something with it, like corn tortillias, or maze juice.
Kaitlin Philipp- It's probably worth noting that most of the corn grown in Indiana, isn't actually food. It's an industrial commodity. Sure some of it ends up in our breakfast cereal either as cornflakes or HFCS, but most of it is made into ethanol or animal feed. I imagine the varieties of corn in Ethiopia aren't the same as our industrial commodity corn, so perhaps that accounts for some of the difference in yield. Really it just makes me question what our super high yields actually mean when you take into account that it isn't actually food.
The Truthbender- I read to the end of the description! We're number one!
Delirious Phycopath- I can't tell if half of his words were WORDS or just jiberish. I was like, Say what? Or Repeat that plz. All my thoughts were "yeah sure I know what that means I'm not dumb.
attack- If more people will have productive lives, then population will grow and more prople will be under poverty. Vicious cycle huh? Ban birth!
Scotty Catman- It's weird that it's pronounced heck tare, but it means 10 acresEDIT: 100, typo.
Robert Masson- How do I get involved with this program of helping Africa with their agricultural struggles? I have checked out stop hunger now, but it seems like sending premade food kits to Africa only compounds the problem as folks become dependent on aid instead of focusing on agricultural development. Teach a man to fish and al that.
Smallpotato1965- Okay, so artificial fertilizer is, well, artificial, so they either have to buy it from abroad or deplete their own soil and resources... (Please look up 'mineral depletion' and 'effects of artificial fertilizer' before touting it as God's Gift to Mankind) Then, to be REALLY productive, these poor people are told they are not to rely on their own seed, but to get (buy) 'improved' seed (aka genetically modified frankenseed from Monsanto), so in a couple of years, when they no longer HAVE the genetically unique heritage seed, Monsanto can make them pay up through their nose to buy their seed each year, if only because Monsanto has the patent on the genetic code of the seed. Then, to be REALLY productive, these farmers can no longer have smallholdings with diverse crops and some livestock, no... they should have a monoculture with lots and lots of maize (high fructose cornsyrup is put into everything today, so we need more because there are still a couple of people who aren't sick and obese) and, of course, soybeans! Lovely, toxic soybeans. Soybeans can only be eaten by humans if they are fermented for at least six months, but of course that is labor intensive, so we won't do that. Instead we will convince the population of Africa that they should abandon their traditional foods and eat soybean oil, just like the Americans, and have a large percentage of their population get cancer, just like Americans (but we won't tell them about the cancer bit).By the time these people find out that they have been conned to give up their smallholdings and independance and discover they have been enslaved to the Big Corporations, it will be too late for them.Nice going, John!
THEWINNER2112- Urrrgh, just use square metres or kilometres
TheGlassesPredicament- Your puff is very puffy. Are you stressed?
FullMetalDeathNote27- I live in Indiana also, and his quote "All corn all the time, occasionally soybeans" couldn't be more true.
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Food Is Weird: Understanding Agriculture in the Developing World