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in the wake of the Survival Symposium and in observance of World Food
Day today, sentiments favoring an increased U.S. role in feeding the world
are predominant in Chapel Hill. The pessimism of Garrett Hardin and
others is easily pushed aside in the euphoria of concern we all share.
Yet it is the duty of the academic community to test ideas by considering
the several sides of an issue or idea. Consider then the case against the
United States feeding the world.
TJie role of the United States in feeding the world must be examined in
both long-term and short-term dimensions. Short-term shipment of
emergency relief aid is a desirable policy in times of famine. All should
sacrifice to help others cope with unpredictable and unavoidable disaster.
The impending era of continual famine, however, presents other
considerations. For the United States to become an international feedbag
will mean needless short-term and long-term suffering in the third world.
Direct food assistance and funds for the acquisition of food face
numerous obstacles to relieving the starvation of millions. Corrupt
governments in the developing world have misspent or misdirected aid. The
government of Chad, according to the New York TimesOc. 11, 1974), flew
half of its allotted U.S. food aid to a remote desert region in little need of
relief. India refused U.S. aid for a long while to avoid any embarrassing
reliance on the United States.
The priorities in these countries do not reflect the needs of the people. As
the Raleigh News and Observer (Nov. 17, 1974) has pointed out, India has
cut its family planning budget and has devoted resources to atomic bomb
development while Ethiopia has squandered funds on tank and fighter plane
purchases. Yet in both nations, "thousands of people literally are steadily
dying of hunger."
When underdeveloped countries receive food aid, much goes to waste.
Because of underdeveloped transportation systems, 23,000 tons of fertilizer
sent to Ethiopia last spring sat idle in the port city Assab. Food storage
involves great losses. The Richmond Times Dispatch reported Oct. 28, 1974
that losses of 70 per cent of food in storage in India are not uncommon.
Even if the malnourished and starving get food to eat, there is no
guarantee that they will benefit from it. Kenneth Warren reports in Natural
History, May 1974, that 200 million people in the third world are infected
with the parasite bilhoziasis. Bilhoziasis is responsible for much mortality
and morbidity in this area. Studies conducted in 1962 by the National
Institute of Health revealed that as the host became better nourished, "a
tenfold increase in parasite growth was noted."
Finally, free food aid creates disincentive effects within the recipient
nations. According to Gale Johnson, professor of agricultural economics at
the University of Chicago, farm prices are kept low in these countries such
that farmers lack incentives to cultivate more land or invest in new
machinery and techniques. Governments are relieved of the need to commit
BECAUSE IT'S GOING ID FEfLfiO GREAT WHEN I !T...TWHVr
Thoughts on 2050 A D.
The gathering darkness:
it's been there a long time
Dr. Louis D. Rubin Jr. is a University
Distinguished Professor of English. He
earned his doctorate in 1954 at Johns
Hopkins University and received an
honorary Doctorate oj' Literature in 1972
from Richmond.
Tomorrow Dr. Joseph W. Straley of the
Physics department will discuss the world in
2050.
When one has lived through the middle
1 ive decades of this century, and is then asked
Dr. Louis D.
to speculate on what will be going on 75
years from now, the first impulse is to cry
havoc and predict disaster seeming that
what has been going on in the world during
one's lifetime is not conducive to the
comfortable reassurance that things will get
much better in the future.
- But that is the natural progression from
innocence to awareness, and I'm quite sure
that the future always looks less hopeful to
the middle-aged than to the young, and even
less so to the old. So 1 shan't assume that all
the menaces to life as 1 know and love it are
going to happen, and that all the
potentialities for doom are bound to occur.
I'll assume, rather, that 75 years from now
civilized life in something like the form we
know it, and with the institutions we
associate with its continuance, will still be
rocking along.
If so, then several things must have
happened during the interim. The problems
of energy use will have been solved to the
extent that we no longer continue to loot the
earth of its combustible resources. The
problems of nationalism will have also been
solved, in that the various political and social
units we call by the name of countries are no
longer in a state of competitive anarchy. I
rather imagine they, or some of them, will
' still continue to exist 1 hope and trust that
the United States of America will be among
them but 1 assume that they will have been
forced into a condition of interdependence
and permanence. By that 1 mean that there
will be no more pioneering economies and
no more open-ended expansion in
population and consumption.
The only way this is going to be achieved, 1
am afraid, is through the several major!
powers of the world agreeing that this is the
only alternative to mutual destruction, and
proceeding to enforce self-containment.
Naturally this will have to go along with the
discovery of a way to feed and clothe
everyone, keep them in beer and pretzels, etc.
But this has never seemed a major problem
to me. We could do it, if we really wanted to
do it.
So if all this comes to pass, or something
like it, 1 would assume that human life will go
x
on then pretty much as now, though the
particular gadgets and terms of reference
may be different. Sophomores will continue
to turn papers in late, Congress will continue
to take recesses, printers will continue to
make printer's errors, associate professors
will continue to demand more faculty
meetings, the ACC will continue to give
basketball fans heart attacks, literary critics
will continue to announce that the novel is
dead, social scientists will continue
to
Rubin, Jr.
announce that the South is about to become
just like the rest of the country and middle
aged English professors will continue to
agree to write statements on things they
know next to nothing about.
If all this seems frivolous, and
insufficiently aware of the gathering
darkness, than I can only say that the
darkness has been gathering for a long time
now, and so far we can still see to read.
Perhaps it is even conceivable that
somebody up there likes us. 1 continue to
hope so.
Gerald Unks
Answer
Why weren't you asked to contribute to
the " World oj 2050" series running in the Tar
Heel? .5.. Chapel Hill.
Because I can think of no way in which
most schools would differ then from what
they are now. If a person who had died in
1900 were to come back to life today, the
place where he would be most comfortable
would be in a school. Of all our institutions
family, church, government, etc. it has
changed the least. Don't be fooled by fancy
buildings or textbooks; it's the same read-and-recite,
sit down, shut up or get out
routine that was standard at the turn of the
century.
If schools have changed so little in the past
75 years, why should we anticipate that they
will make any giant leap forward in the next?
1J one wanted to change a school, how
should he go about it? W.L.C. 111, Chapel
Hill. Neil Postman and Charles
Weingartner, authors of The School Book,
say schools are changed in the same manner
as plastic by applying heat and pressure.
Raise as much hell as possible, be
"uncooperative" and "unprofessional" and
keep at it until the school bureaucracy finally
responds. For years, school officials and
resources to food production and population stabilization. As Don
Paarlberg, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue, has written,
"Dependence on donated food will grow ... The recipient country may in
time become so dependent on the donor nation that it loses its autonomy."
The alternative to direct food assistance is a more palatable approach.
The use of technological and educational assistance helps recipient
countries to develop their own resources. Dr. Philip Abelson of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science reported earlier this
year that "in Latin America only 23 per cent of suitable cropland is being
used.
"The possibility for expanded production" of food exists virtually
everywhere through the use of improved seeds and fertilizers," Dr. Abelson
has written. "This is especially true of the developing countries where yields
today are only about half of the developed countries.
The introduction of new rice varieties produced record crops in India in
1970 and 1971 after famines in 1966 and 1967. The New York Times Nov. 1,
1974) cites scientists who predict an upcoming time "when the rice yields can
increase faster than they did in the first 10 years of the green revolution.
Bacteriologist Rene Dubos of Rockefeller University has indicated that
"the application of present scientific knowledge to agriculture would permit
the production of enough food to support 50 billion human beings on earth,
almost 20 times the present level."
While care must be exercised to protect the environment from
W$ latlg
83rd Year of Editorial Freedom
Cole C. Campbell
Editor
Elliott Warnock
Managing Editor
Darnie K. Day
Projects Editor
Susan Shackelford
Sports Editor
Martha Stevens
Head photographer
The Daily Tar Heel, the UNC student newspaper since 1893, has its
editorial, news and business offices in the Carolina Union on campus.
All unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Daily Tar Heel,
while signed columns and letters represent the viewpoints of the
individual contributors. Thursday, April 17, 1975
Letters to the editor
A&T deserves vet school foecamse it's Mack?
To the editor:
I was astounded to read in the editorial
column of Wednesday's Tar Heel that the
editor favors locating the proposed vet
school at North Carolina A&T. By some
twisted logic you seem to feel that A&T
should receive the vet school solely because it
is predominantly black, not because it
possesses the necessary qualifications. It
doesn't seem to matter to you that N . C.
State is eminently more qualified.
In the recent race for editor of the Tar Heel
you ran on your qualifications, and people
voted for you because they thought you were
better qualified than Sugar-Baer. But going
by your reasoning, people would have been
entirely justified in voting for Harriet Sugar
because she is female and a helluva lot better
Hooking than you are. Can I retract my vote?
. Russ Roberson
306 Teague
Top 10 in line glad
doors were opened
To the editor:
Around 4:30 p.m. on Monday, as I was
walking by the west end of Hanes Hall, I saw
a strange congregation at the door. Only a
lew people were there; but as I happened to
be carrying a sleeping bag, radio, umbrella,
and a few books, 1 decided to stay and see
"why the crowd was there. Ah yes,
registration forms soon began sticking out of
books and peeping out of sleeping bags; and
the story began to unfold.
The story was junior registration. A few
brave souls decided to fight the weather
even if it was to be rain all night. By a little
alter 5:00 p.m. there were: I) Bruce
Seligman, 2) James Barnes, 3) Bill
Patterson, 4) Debbie Ogle, 5) Bob
Jones, 6) Rick Borston, 7) Mark Jacokes, 8)
Warren McMurry, 9) Jeff Hale and 10)
Carol Davidson. Soon, many more were to
lollow.
Then a miracle came (slightly after the
rain). Ben Perry made a lot of people happy
the mail
rag
teachers have relied upon public apathy and
ignorance of pedagogical principles to allow
them to do as they damn please at the
taxpayers expense under the banner of
"professionalism." Head them off at the
pass, and demand decent schools for your
children until they give them to you.
If one were to single out a particular
person for heat and pressure, it would be the
school principal. He usually has more
latitude in determining what goes on in a
school than do teachers or the central
administration though he won't admit it.
To a great extent, he can create or destroy a
good school. For example, I am told that the
Ocracoke School, about which 1 wrote so
glowingly last Fall, has a new principal who
has set the school on a path of regression
toward the conventional school norm. It is
sad but typical of schools that they change
for the good, and then some firebrand who
treasures the old and untrue throws his
archaic sand into the gears of progress.
If you want to change your kid's school,
zero in on the principal. Beat the intellectual
crap out of him. He usually possesses a
dearth of intellect and a bottomless pit of
crap.
(Jar Msst
Jim Grlmsley
Associate Editor
Jim Roberts
News Editor
Gene Johnson
Wire Editor
Ralph J. Irace
Contributing Editor
Alan Murray
Features Editor
Joyce Fltzpatrlck
Graphic Arts Editor
Marlon Merritt
Night Editor
by coming to Hanes Hall and starting
registration early. Real early like 10:00
p.m. Super job.
Another tip of the hat should go to officer
Davis of the Campus Police and Raymond
Strong (Records). Thanks, and we are glad
we didn't have to stay all night. Sorry it
didn't make everyone happy.
The Top Ten
Piatt's accusations
said racist, bigoted
To the editor
1 sometimes wonder if Rorin Piatt and
others like him (Robert Putnam 111, etc.)
aren't merely fictitious characters created by
each particular editor of the Tar Heel so that
the replies will provide filler for the editorial
page. However, since this "Rorin Piatt" has
appeared under a new editor, we must
suspect that he does indeed exist.
In Tuesday's DTH. Mr. Piatt (real or not)
attempts to project what would have,
happened had white students silenced
Stokely Carmichael. It is pointless to argue
with this opinionated "what if reasoning,
but 1 do disagree with Piatt's argument
saying that by not protesting, whites have
encouraged a monster intent on eating his
beloved capitalism and racial supremacy.
It would have been wrong to silence
Carmichael, just as it was wrong to silence
David Duke. Extremists such as Duke (and
Piatt) should present their views to us, if only
that we may see their absurdity. Stokely
Carmichael's position on capitalism and
racism is extreme but not absurd. He simply
advocates the destruction of the institutions .
which have retarded the fulfillment of his
people in this country.
Piatt would have us believe that we whites
owe the minorities nothing, but he can not
possibly justify that even under his own
Protestant-capitalistic ethic. We owe the
minorities something for having denied them
their rights; a capitalist would be the first to
say a debt must be paid, and certainly no
Christian will deny that we must pay for past
Why are teachers such battleaxes in their
classes, demanding rigid enforcement of
idiotic rules oj conduct, stifling creativity
and accepting only one "right" answer
their own? N. W. T., Chatham County.
Though there are studies indicating that
teachers score higher than the majority of the
population in fascist tendencies, closed
mindedness and adherence to tradition,
most teachers are decent people who cherish
their subject and have a democratic respect
lor student rights. Unfortunately, they are
often trapped in a system which judges them
on how quiet their classrooms are or how
closely they stick to a regimented course
outline rather than how much learning their
students accomplish. Teachers are often
unwilling subjects of a tyrannical regime.
That is why so many quit so early.
On the other hand, there is a sizeable
number mostly women whose behavior
can only be explained with a different
hypothesis. It goes like this: In every
population there are a number of women
who, through some mystical a priori
experience, have come to believe they are
possessed of the way, the truth and the light.
They know with the fanaticism of a
agricultural expansion, no greater care need be taken in the developing
countries than in the developed countries already suffering from
agricultural side effects. Indeed less developed countries should have a
greater capacity to assimilate spill-overs into the environment and to plan
and control such spill-over.
Above all else, policy makers must avoid sustaining a spiralling world
population which will strain natural and technological resources. Likewise,
an overdependence on the U.S . or any sole source of food must not develop.
"Almost all recorded famines have resulted from widespread crop
failures," writes Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer in Foreign Affairs (Oct.
1974). Already, as Science (Aug. 17, 1973) points out, a poor harvest in the
U.S. would mean disaster for some countries that depend on American food
exports. To increase dependence upon the U.S. increases the risk of
devastating crop failures with worldwide repercussions.
That risk is not insignificant. A National Academy of Sciences study
released in January states that there exists a basic uncertainty as to whether
U.S. farmers will produce enough food 25 years from now to support the
American people. Oligopolistic tendencies limiting food output, loss of land
to soil erosion and strip mining, and unpredictable natural disasters like
floods, droughts and earthquakes may heighten this uncertainty. If goodly
numbers of people in the third world are dependent on U.S. food, the impact
of a decline or natural disaster might be cataclysmic.
If we intervene too much and too long with food aid, Garrett Hardin's
gloomy prediction of exponential population growth resulting in worldwide
disaster (affecting developed and underdeveloped societies may well
become reality. Political leaders in the third world have often failed to tackle
the population problem; cultural, religious, educational, and
technological barriers further limit optimism about checking population
growth.
Serious questions about U.S. agricultural capacity must be answered
before we commit ourselves to becoming the feedbag of the world. The
USDA Soil Conservation Service estimates that 60 million tons of topsoil
were lost from newly developed agricultural lands in 1974. Nitrogen
fertilizer run-off threatens water quality in some areas.
The ability to feed our own people is in doubt. G.W. Cook, retired
chairperson of General Foods, has stated that from 20 percent to 25 percent
of all Americans are already unable to get proper nutrition due to increases
in food prices in the last two years. And the National Academy of Sciences
wonders about our future ability to sustain U.S. needs.
Yet much of the third world lies uncultivated and underutilized. Leaders
fail to deal with proper distribution of food and development of resources.
Military aspirations outdistance humanitarian needs in budgetary
considerations. Population . control efforts Tag. And so thousands are
starving to death.
Whose house must be put into order first?
sins. Appealing to less complicated and
hypocritical values than those of capitalism
and Christianity, is it just for us to not help
those we have hurt?
Piatt, your emotional column exhibits
your own bigotry using words such as
"moron mentality," "imbecilic" and "thugs"
to describe blacks characterizes you as racist.
Ending your argument with a statement
about the great price paid by "our black
citizenry" is a poor attempt to disguise your
position. As long as the ideologies that
produced such as you remain in power, the
minorities can not win justice.
Ken Howell
408 E. Rosemary, Apt. 3 .
Students thank Perry
for early registration
To the editor
We wish to express our gratitude to Ben
Perry of Records and Registration and the
other University administrators who
enabled rising juniors to begin preregistering
Monday evening. To the 1 50 or so of us who
had elected to spend the night in the rain, a
kinder deed could not have been done.
Lest there be any dissatisfaction with the
decision, let us explain one thing: Mr. Perry
volunteered to preregister only those
students in line by 9:30 p.m. However,
when word got out that registration had
"started," sophomores came from all over
campus. The result was that uninformed
rising juniors were forced to register
relatively late in the class, since they arrived
early the next morning.
Before you condemn the University for
another blunder at the students' expense,
consider who is really responsible. It was the
students who abused the favor of a few
University administrators and who also
upset the plans of fellow students. Although
we are sure many sophomores will complain
about the decision, we believe that Mr.
Perry's decision to volunteer his time so that
1 50 of us could go home to sleep was one of
the kindest acts on the part of any
education amid immis
dervish what is good ior everyone, and
with zeal unbounding they seek to impose
their notion of Tightness on others.
Such zealous women can find a haven in
the Catholic Church as nuns. There they
will be free and encouraged to inflict their
rigid standards upon any who choose to
enter their classrooms." Their fiery
absolutism is fueled, not extinguished, and
they lead a sublimated life of bliss, bringing
"goodness" to the world. Our local Catholic
school does not have such zealots in
command, and has consequently developed
one of the finest elementary schools in the
city, but the typical parochial school is a
haven for such absolutists.
The Protestant church particularly the
more fundamental ilks is rife with such
female aberrations, women consumed with
the desire to drive out demons with their own
dogmatic devices. Self-righteous and
overpowered with zeal, they can conceive of
only one answer and one code of conduct
theirs.
Unfortunately, the Protestant church
offers its female fanatics no nunnery and few
havens other than to beat the drum against
booze or to pass the tambourine, collecting
University official that we have experienced
at UNC.
Bob Jones
2530 Granville
Debbie Ogle
2618 Granville
Column on Wallace
calls for an apology
To the editor
Re: the column (415 75) by Tim Pittman
on Gov. George Wallace. Since Cole
Campbell became editor, the DTH has
steadily gone downhill, but now it has finally
hit the bottom. Mr. Pittman's column does
not only show poor taste, but reveals a lack
of a sense of humor, and most of all a lack of
intelligence of the writer.
For those of you who missed this lovely
piece of art, the dialogue of the column is
similar to a Mark Twain story. Gov. Wallace
is the stupid Southern bigot with his
bumbling sidekick, Jim Holshouser. Gov.
Wallace has an outrageous accent, but
surprisingly. Gov. Holshouser does not.
(Have you heard him speak lately?) Mr;
Pittman, this is not very accurate journalism:
1 am willing to bet that since you come from
Smithfield you probably have a Southern
accent also.
Next, Mr. Pittman reveals to us that Gov.
Wallace isn't paralyzed at all. He's merely
pretending in an effort to gain both
sympathy and votes. Probably in Mr.
Pittman's next column we'll find out that
John and Robert Kennedy and Martin
Luther King are all pretending to be dead for
the enrichment of their country.
1 personally feel that Mr. Pittman. as well
as Mr. Campbell, owes Gov. Wallace, Gov.
Holshouser and the entire student body an
apology for writing and publishing such
slanderous trash.
K.E. Shiver
331 W. Rosemary St.
lunds to put brassieres on Africans. So. these
frustrated Protestant ladies, bent upon
bringing their idea of goodness to the world,
must find another retreat. They become
school teachers! In the authoritarian
tradition of the classroom, they can hold
forth missionaries in our own land
imposing their narrow notion of goodness
and truth upon our children and punishing
their peculiar conception of evil however
they choose.
Teachers may be battleaxes because they
are forced to be so by administrative decree.
1 hey may also behave that way because they
are, in reality, Protestant nuns.
Do you make up these questions yourself ?
D.D.D., Chapel Hill.
Yes.
When will you get around to talking about
sex? D.K.E, Chapel Hill.
Next week.
17S GwaM Unto
Gerald Unks is an associate professor in
the School oj Education.