This is Bazyli Czyżewski again, in response to Francisco Gurri (Message 58). 

I agree with the opinion that if "you google local farmer markets in the US and agroecological farms and organic farms. I don't think you will find Monsanto amongst them". The same, if we consider agroecological farms in Poland or in different European countries. They get support in Europe from the EU Common Agricultural Policy for being agroecological, and they have to meet specific ecological requirements. But there is less than 1% of such farms in Poland. In Austria which is leading in ecological production - less than 10%. The market share for the ecological farm's food accounts from 5% to the maximum 20% in the EU. So, it is the minority. 

The question is whether subsistence and semi-subsistence farms in less developed countries would use capital intensive practices (GMO feeding stuffs and seeds, fertilisers etc.) if they could afford to purchase it and to maintain adequate production scale. Perhaps, they are now forced to be agroecological because they don't have any choice or any opportunity to become capital intensive? What would happen when they will? Do you really think that they will choose ecological path of development which is less competitive? In my opinion, agroecological practices in USA and in Europe are possible only thanks to the specific policy support for such farms. Without this support, these farms would be forced to become capital intensive if they wanted to survive on the market or they would disappear. This is called "market treadmill" - the theorem elaborated by Willard Cochrane in the 1950s. 

We estimated agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emission models for the panels of countries on the different development level which proves that the increase in agricultural income in less and medium gross domestic product (GDP) countries translates into higher GHG emissions. Only in well developed countries do higher incomes result in lower GHG emissions from agriculture (as I mentioned previously, these models can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/project/Environmental-Impact-of-Different-Models-of-Agriculture) 

And if we consider, for example, the average farm GHG emissions per ha in such countries as Greece, Cyprus, Japan, Korea, Malta, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Taiwan, Hungary, Italy in 1995-2009 it is more than 6289 kg CO2 eqv. per ha, while in the well developed countries (such as Austria, Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland, Canada, Luxembourg, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, USA, UK) only 4152 kg CO2 eqv. per ha.
 
Bazyli Czyżewski, PhD. (hab.)
Associate professor
Department of Education and Personnel Development
Investigator in Research Group of Macroeconomics and Agricultural Economics Departmnent
Poznań University of Economics
Poland
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bazyli_Czyzewski
E-mail: b.czyzewski (at) ue.poznan.pl

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