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PAGE 18
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, SEPTEMBER 16, 1986·
Ecologists and other scientists point to additional risks from
the explosion in grain production.
The acceptance of the
modern seed varieties is leading to � potentiall :( disastrous
neglect of thousands of primitive and native grain varieties
that have valuable genetic traits, such as drought resistance
�tolerance to toxic soil salts, that are becoming lost
forever to breeders.
Moreover, the modern varieties grow best with pesticides and
fertilizers. Increasing use· of chemicals around the world is
polluting water and causing sicknesses and injuries throughout
the developing world, environmental experts say.
Farming on
land ill-suited to agriculture is resulting in widespread
erosion.
Finally, the trend toward food self-sufficiency is one of the
principal causes of the depression in the farming regions of
the world's developed nations, according to experts. In the
biggest decline of the century, the international trade in
grain fell 38.5 million metric tons or nearly 18 percent since
last year, according to the United States Department of
Agriculture.
Governments around the world are searching
desperately for e�pty railroad hopper cars, barges, silos,
warehouses, even military airplane hangars, to store 320
million metric tons£!_ surplus grain, the� in history.::-:;
Surpluses are depressing grain prices, causing farmers to go
out qf business, and bankrupting businesses dependent on the
purchasing power of growers.
Governments are seeking to prevent� total colla � se ez pouring
billions of dollars into theJ.r farmers' pockets with subsidies,
income supports and otlier payments. In the United States, such
spending this fiscal year could reach $30 billion or more,
seven times what the Government spent in 1981, when export farm
sales totaled a record $44 billion and American farmers sold
more than 160 million metic tons of grain overseas [down to
about $26 billion this year].
Man's technology applied to agriculture is destined to fail, one way or
another. One rarely discussed drawback to technology dependence is the
fact that peace is � necessary prerequisite, so that the flow of
pesticides, herbicides, the latest miracle seeds and genetically altered
plants continues uninterrupted from the developed to developing countries.
Interestingly enough, famines and pestilences follow wars and rumors of
wars and �ation rising against nation in time sequence in Matthew 24.
Today's burgeoning surpluses, the butter mountains and oil and wine lakes
can vanish rapidly, given tumultuous political conditions. The same first
�\;i<chapter of Joel that foretells ravenous locust plagues also warns (v. 10):
- � � "The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new
�wine is dried up, the oil languisheth."
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--Gene Hogberg, News Bureau