Disadvantages of improved food production
Name(s):
Counterproductive mechanized food production technologies
Drawbacks of excess food production
Incidence
[Developing countries] In most developing countries where the majority of the population is in the agricultural sector, excessive food production may be nearly as economically disruptive as food shortages, especially when such expensive inputs as fertilizers, fuel and equipment are part of production costs to be repaid from output sales. Mechanization for increased production, therefore, may not always be a desirable or appropriate policy target. In many developing countries, a lack of on-farm facilities for post-harvesting and handling of crops, coupled with limited economic channels of crop disposal, may form a critical bottleneck that has the effect of neutralizing all benefits due from mechanized tillage and/or crop protection investments.
Claim
Productivity increases in agriculture and industry over the last two centuries has come from "increased (rather than decreased) resource throughput," despite dramatic efficiency gains over the same period. This is irretrievably damaging the natural environment.
Broader
Narrower
Aggravates
Aggravated by
Reduced by
Strategy(ies)
Type
(F) Fuzzy exceptional problems