Apparently, there’s a drought in the Southeastern US. There’s a drought here in Australia, too. After the recent torrential rains and flooding we’ve had, one headline mentioned that after the flood it was right back to the drought for many farmers. All of this drought in countires and regions where I have lived has me thinking about droughts in places where I haven’t lived, or even been.

I haven’t been to Africa, but I know that water is a scarce resource in many countries there, and that farmers are struggling to cope with changing weather patterns that leave them without the prmary resource they need: water. I have seen pictures of large disappearing lakes in Africa. I imagine it is not the same everywhere there, that there are places receiving rain and able to support themselves from agriculture. I have also read about severe drought in Western China, coupled with contemporaneous devastating floods in a neighboring province. Again, I imagine that this is not the same everywhere in China, that many regions receive appropriate amounts of rainfall and reap at least adequate harvests.

Still, I notice two things. First, I notice the institutional support that American farmers get. The government has enough resources to be able to pay farmers so that they can maintain their farms even when they don’t make any money in a given year and have $400,000 in debt for improvements they have made. Here in Australia, the government is talking about buying farmers out: paying them to move off the land and try something else for a living. (Of course, it’s an election year, so take that with a grain of salt.) I would suspect that few governments in Africa could offer a similar level of support, so that farmers in those countries will face much more difficult circumstances than there American counterparts. I don’t know that it’s good or bad, I just notice it. It is.

Also, I notice something more fundamental. Becuase of the changing dynamics of weather on the planet, our agricultural system–that foundation of all materially-advanced society–may no longer be sufficiently robust to sustain us. Couple that with diminishing yields because of innovations during the green revolution of the 1960s, and I can pretty easily imagine grocery store shelves with much less on them. That’s to say nothing of the people who either have no food or have to grow it themselves. I’m willing to make a judgment call on that. It is bad.

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