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Also there are massive apartment buildings in that small farming village because Asia.
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Dec 28, 2014 03:12
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Rice Farms in China are still a weird mix of Collective Farming with Semi-Individual Plots, which probably accounts for their lack of mechanization. Plots are too small and disjointed to make it economical or feasible to introduce large scale agronomic techniques. The fact that the land technically belongs to the State doesn't help, especially since the most common thing to use as collateral when obtaining a loan or mortgage is... land. I'm a bit less knowledgeable about Japanese Rice Farms, but they are to an extent a byproduct of Feudal and Post-War Laws and ideas leading to weird tiny part-time farms. With restrictions on the buying and selling of the land, it creates problems similar to the ones in China. The Economist Nov 2nd 2013 posted:Land reforms following the 1978 plenum freed peasants from the communes but denied them other rights. They cannot sell their fields or, except to fellow villagers, their homes. They cannot mortgage land or home. The Economist Apr 13th 2013 posted:Part-time farmers mounting their tractors in their spare hours are a much-loved part of the Japanese landscape. Often elderly, they have other employment too, or their families help them financially: either way, farming is not their sole source of income. The sheer number of such farmers drags down the sector’s productivity. Of Japan’s 1.5m farmers, only 420,000 are engaged in farming full-time. Part-timers tend not to invest, and often farm badly.
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Dec 31, 2014 18:15
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In the southern half of China mountainous terrain makes mechanization difficult too. Economic reform in China in the last 30 years has favored the cities and left the countryside behind. Driving into the countryside from a large city is like time travel. The farther you go the further back into the past you are.
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Jan 1, 2015 02:04
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Vaga42Bond posted:Rice Farms in China are still a weird mix of Collective Farming with Semi-Individual Plots, which probably accounts for their lack of mechanization. Plots are too small and disjointed to make it economical or feasible to introduce large scale agronomic techniques. The fact that the land technically belongs to the State doesn't help, especially since the most common thing to use as collateral when obtaining a loan or mortgage is... land. Not really, actually. Large scale agronomic techniques are frequently less efficient for increasing crop yield per acre, especially when talking about food crops. It's a pretty big issue especially when you're talking about uplifting a nascent middle class preceding some kind of industrialization. The biggest industrial disasters of the 20th centuries occurred in the "quick, let's industrialize" communist economies that bought into the prevailing wisdom that scale = productivity in farming, and collectivization and large-scale farming caused enormous food shortages in Russia and China that are pretty well-documented. Westerners tend to think that the collective farms failed because socialism doesn't work, when actually it's just because large-scale farming is inefficient. It's good for reaping profits, especially if you're, say, a big country with lots of unused, arable land (USA), but not good for feeding your population unless you're, say, a country with a loving ton of independent land-owning farmers (USA) whose methods of increasing profit usually go hand in hand with just farming more. The Chinese farming situation today is a little bit of back-pedaling from the big farms policy under Mao, and kinda comes hand in hand with building up an agricultural underbelly to keep in pace with urbanization. When you ignore that, you end up with a situation like in Thailand, where Bangkok is an economic hub and the rest of the country is rubbish. Also you're completely wrong about Japan. The farming situation in Japan is 100% the result of the US occupation encouraging large-scale land reform to pacify more radical elements of the Japanese population after the war (and fearing the spread of Soviet influence and the growth of the Japanese Communists). It's notable because the US did not encourage this type of land reform anywhere else, and it shows (Philippines has large-scale farms, lots of under-paid tenant workers, and a poo poo economy). It was very directly engineered to ensure that Japanese farming families had their own plots of land to work without being indebted on landlords. You see, the biggest problem with increasing agronomic productivity when talking about small-scale farms is that farms tend to coalesce into large-scale farms, as farmers find they can rent their land out for profit, or sell their plot to someone else entirely and go on working as a tenant. This isn't because the large-scale farms are more productive, it's because they're more profitable and competitive. But if you prevent large-scale farms from forming like this, the only options farmers have to increase their competitiveness is to increase their productivity, and that means work harder and make use of efficient farming techniques to really wring as much out of the land as you can. Crop yields in Japan, especially post-land reform (1960's and 1970's) were astronomical, and the Japanese farming middle class was the consumer fuel that contributed to their incredible industrial boom. Of course, this type of farmer molly-coddling is only useful for so long, and the Japanese bias towards heavy industry led to a pretty under-developed consumer goods industry - and this is why the crash, the bubble pop, and $5 apples are a thing. But that's a story for another day. Suffice it to say that small, family-owned farms are not and were never a problem for modern Japan. Crezth fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 21:26
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Crezth posted:But that's a story for another day. Suffice it to say that small, family-owned farms are not and were never a problem for modern Japan. This is so far off of the accepted wisdom I've read/heard on the topic that I'd like to hear some more details. We don't have to gum up the thread (although I guess it's between updates and semi-relevant) but if you've got a links to book or some articles that go into more detail and include some hard data, I'd be interested. VVV: Thanks! I'm off on a trip so even with Grand Fromage's blessing I won't be replying much, but I do have a new book to check out during the down time. Akratic Method fucked around with this message at 09:24 on Jan 3, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 23:42
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Off the top of my head, How Asia Works by Joe Studwell is a good starting place. I think he is actually somewhat more critical of the Japanese farming situation, but the essential points vis a vis large-scale farming and counteracting urban bias are sufficiently explored to make the point. He also talks about some of the circumstantial reasons that the Japanese land reform turned out really well, like how, say, something around 15% of Japanese land is arable, and a lot of that is taken up by buildings and infrastructure, so increasing yield per acre is very important in obtaining some measure of agricultural self-sufficiency. As a quick illustration, the World Bank data for 1980 shows very competitive yield rates for cereal (not even produce), which, to me, comes across as impressive, especially given Japan's not exactly a breadbasket. Nowadays, those numbers have dropped off rather substantially, but I think the problems with Japanese farming are more related to how highly subsidized and protected it is than any small farming practices per se.
Crezth fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Jan 3, 2015 |
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Jan 3, 2015 00:19
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I have no idea how but somehow reading about agricultural land reform and the relevant economics is actually interesting.
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Jan 3, 2015 03:55
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Akratic Method posted:This is so far off of the accepted wisdom I've read/heard on the topic that I'd like to hear some more details. We don't have to gum up the thread (although I guess it's between updates and semi-relevant) but if you've got a links to book or some articles that go into more detail and include some hard data, I'd be interested. I don't mind, general urbanism discussion has always been okay and agriculture counts I think.
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Jan 3, 2015 03:57
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Crezth posted:Off the top of my head, How Asia Works by Joe Studwell is a good starting place. I think he is actually somewhat more critical of the Japanese farming situation, but the essential points vis a vis large-scale farming and counteracting urban bias are sufficiently explored to make the point. He also talks about some of the circumstantial reasons that the Japanese land reform turned out really well, like how, say, something around 15% of Japanese land is arable, and a lot of that is taken up by buildings and infrastructure, so increasing yield per acre is very important in obtaining some measure of agricultural self-sufficiency. As a quick illustration, the World Bank data for 1980 shows very competitive yield rates for cereal (not even produce), which, to me, comes across as impressive, especially given Japan's not exactly a breadbasket. Nowadays, those numbers have dropped off rather substantially, but I think the problems with Japanese farming are more related to how highly subsidized and protected it is than any small farming practices per se. Yeah, you gave an excellent primer on how the situation came about. However now the ideal of the small Japanese farmer is sacred and protectionist tariffs and subsidies are combining with the demographic cliff to make for an ugly picture. Something will have to change in the next few years.
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Jan 3, 2015 04:09
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i81icu812 posted:Something will have to change in the next few years. But it probably won't. japan.txt
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Jan 3, 2015 04:26
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Grand Fromage posted:There wasn't really any game stuff to say, it was just a pictures post. Thought that might be more interesting. Teledahn posted:I have no idea how but somehow reading about agricultural land reform and the relevant economics is actually interesting. It might seem silly at first, but in all reality it isn't hard to imagine why this might be interesting. I mean, this thread is based on a simulation of societal development. All the talk of shifting populations between the villages and the cities and the transition from agriculture to industry is fascinating, and personally I love any sort of discussion on how civilization has evolved over time like this. And one of the funny things about this thread is how often Fromage just bulldozes parts of a city and all I can think of is one of those stories where land developers are trying to demolish Old Lady MacGuffin's farm because they want to build a new highway there. Except now I'm on the side of the land developer. Also despite some of the sadder parts of the movement from villages to cities that were mentioned - like grandparents dropping dead and parents being around once in a blue moon - the idea of a village that is mostly kids and old people sounds pleasant as gently caress.
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Jan 14, 2015 22:32
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Ghost Stromboli posted:Also despite some of the sadder parts of the movement from villages to cities that were mentioned - like grandparents dropping dead and parents being around once in a blue moon - the idea of a village that is mostly kids and old people sounds pleasant as gently caress. Not really. At least not in Taiwan. In Taiwan they end up being dingy little "towns" of about 25-75,000 residents. If it's near the coast you'll see a few high rises surrounded by rice farms. In the mountains smaller buildings surrounded by tea plantations and also rice farms. Bars/pubs/late night restaurants are all non-existent, and any other shops close after night fall. There will usually be one small park, but it will be in such sad disrepair that no one ever goes too it. There WILL be a small (emphasis on small) night market most likely, but don't expect that to be open more than 2 nights a week. Oh, and movie theaters and things like that don't exist in those towns either. Have to drive to the city for that.
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Jan 15, 2015 03:52
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Crezth posted:Not really, actually. Large scale agronomic techniques are frequently less efficient for increasing crop yield per acre, especially when talking about food crops. It's a pretty big issue especially when you're talking about uplifting a nascent middle class preceding some kind of industrialization. The biggest industrial disasters of the 20th centuries occurred in the "quick, let's industrialize" communist economies that bought into the prevailing wisdom that scale = productivity in farming, and collectivization and large-scale farming caused enormous food shortages in Russia and China that are pretty well-documented. Westerners tend to think that the collective farms failed because socialism doesn't work, when actually it's just because large-scale farming is inefficient. It's good for reaping profits, especially if you're, say, a big country with lots of unused, arable land (USA), but not good for feeding your population unless you're, say, a country with a loving ton of independent land-owning farmers (USA) whose methods of increasing profit usually go hand in hand with just farming more. The Chinese farming situation today is a little bit of back-pedaling from the big farms policy under Mao, and kinda comes hand in hand with building up an agricultural underbelly to keep in pace with urbanization. When you ignore that, you end up with a situation like in Thailand, where Bangkok is an economic hub and the rest of the country is rubbish. That might be the case for the PRC, but the Soviet reasoning for collectivization is a little more complex and has more to do with industrial development. Basically, after Lenin died, you had a split between the right-wing, led by Stalin and Bukharin, and the left-wing, led by Trotsky. Trotsky argued for an immediate dismantling of the NEP, forcible collectivization, and the destruction of the kulaks. He was supported by Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, the leading economist of the Left Opposition, who argued, basically, that the peasantry would not invest in development on their own- the state had to absorb their surplus and direct it. Thus, the state would have to appropriate the property of the kulaks and collectivize the peasants so that as much capital as possible could be squeezed from them in order to use it elsewhere. Preobrazhensky also took things further in arguing that the proletariat also wouldn't invest, but that's somewhat ancillary to collectivization. In any case, the Left Opposition lost, and Preobrazhensky was sent into internal exile working in the Urals planning offices, redeemed briefly and brought into the higher echelons of Gosplan, then arrested and shot during the purges. Stalin initially rejected his "new economics", but eventually embraced it in the early 30s, arguing that crash industrialization was necessary. This brought about a gigantic human cost, and then a bigger one in the course of winning the Second World War, and arguably doomed the USSR to authoritarianism. That being said, the successes of (voluntary) collectivization in Catalonia under anarchism suggest that it does have advantages in improving production in marginal areas. Of course, whether that would hold up under full mechanization is unlikely to be answered in the near future.
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Jan 16, 2015 05:03
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Grand Fromage do you always perfectly level the terrain around your traintracks?
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Jan 22, 2015 02:16
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Just finished zerging through this thread. Interesting watching things build up -- you've got a nice feel for organic growth, GF.
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Feb 25, 2015 02:16
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Subyng posted:Grand Fromage do you always perfectly level the terrain around your traintracks? I try to at least level the track itself but I don't always. If nothing else I keep it as level as possible and with reasonable grades. This will be coming back; I haven't had a functional computer for a while. I have a new one now. 
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Feb 25, 2015 02:24
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Between the cool SC4 designs, and the neato real world pictures, this has been one of the chillest and most interesting LPs I've followed. Looking forward to more. 
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Feb 25, 2015 02:28
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If anyone following this hasn't played Cities Skylines you should, it is good.
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Apr 6, 2015 02:40
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 13:21 |
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Grand Fromage posted:If anyone following this hasn't played Cities Skylines you should, it is good. Maybe some alternate universe spaghetti city, poowater dam or riverbed town is in order?
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Apr 6, 2015 05:32
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