Lester Brown Who Will Feed China Study Guide

1. Who will feed china looks at china specifically but does so in a way of how things happening in china impact the rest of the world. 2. After releasing the article, china gov’t initial response was a disagreement to brown’s hypothesis. They said by 2025 they would double their grain production so it wouldn’t be a problem. But then grain prices soared and they started to have to import grain so then they asked for brown’s help. 3. People understand that the standard of living in the US could not work for the entire world. 4. The earliest constraints in attempting to make this transformation are food supply. 5. Resource constraints are grain and grain production. As well as water supply and quality. 6. In China, if internal constraints are faced by producers, what solution will the state most likely pursue? They are most likely to import scare resources. Is their historical precedent for such a solution? Japan, Taiwan, and S Korea did this but they have nowhere near the populatoni and people to feed as china does. What impacts can be expected from such an approach both internally and globally? Prices will go up around the world! 7. The gov’t wants to keep prices on grain high enough to keep the farmers on their land but low enough so people in urban areas can afford to eat. Based on your reading of Brown, from the standpoint of China discuss the relationship between industrialization, farmland, consumers, and international trade. 8. 6. In some detail discuss the precise relationships between grain lands and industrialization in China. How does this relate to Brown's statement that grain production will fall not as a result of agricultural failure, but from industrial success. 9. What is the "wake-up call"? China's emergence as a massive grain importer will be the wake-up call that will signal trouble in the relationship between ourselves, now numbering 5.7 billion, and the natural systems and resources on which