• CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    The point was that new technologies aren’t irrelevant because capitalism. Food waste and the shackles of imperialist finance affect different countries disproportionately. But the latter was always cushioned by the fact that, historically, it was straight up impossible for non temperate countries to become food sufficient. At least not in an industrial context. Every advancement in that direction for the past 60 years have created pathways that undermined the basis of imperialist finance.

    Yes, if you’re American you have an entire temperate continent to exploit. In these conditions it all boils down to redistribution, wether within or outside of capitalist hegemony. But if you’ve been Indian, Brazilian, Chinese or South African ever since the Green Revolution what you needed was new crops. Productive enough to outcompete cheap exports from the imperial core. That is why countries like Angola became interested in the Brazilian soy, and countries like Indonesia became interested in the Chinese marshy rice. This new rice that the video talks about is revolutionary for pretty much everyone.

    • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      I mean, I don’t disagree that it’s awesome and that waste isn’t the real problem, but…

      Productive enough to outcompete cheap exports from the imperial core.

      The cheap exports are a result of international finance fucking over the labor in the producing countries who are locked into their shitty loans by corrupt puppets of Western imperialism. Those cheap exports are just the international trade equivalent of Loss Leaders. Making a cheaper competitor isn’t going to stop the coups or the NGOs or the right wing death squads. The prohibitive problem isn’t the cost, it’s the barrel of the gun pointed at the third world holding them hostage to the system. If anything, I’d say this is more likely to help those states who are already exiled from the western community like DPRK, Cuba, and Venezuela.