SOCIOLOGICAL NEEDS OF FARMERS FACING SEVERE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Does the World Need U.S. Farmers Even if Americans Don’t?

We consider the implications of trends in the number of U.S. farmers and food imports on the question of what role U.S. farmers have in an increasingly global agrifood system. Our discussion stems from the argument some scholars have made that American consumers can import their food more cheaply from other countries than it can produce it. We consider the distinction between U.S. farmers and agriculture and the effect of the U.S. food footprint on developing nations to argue there might be an important role for U.S. farmers, even if it appears Americans don’t need them. For instance, we may need to protect U.S. farmland and, by implication, U.S. farmers, for future food security needs both domestic and international. We also explore the role of U.S. farmers by considering the question of whether food is a privilege or a right. Although Americans seem to accept that food is a privilege, many scholars and commentators argue that, at least on a global scale, food is a right, particularly for the world’s poor and hungry. If this is the case, then U.S. farmers might have a role in meeting the associated obligation to ensure that the poor of the world have enough food to eat. We look at the consequences of determining that food is a right versus a privilege and the implications of that decision for agricultural subsidies as well as U.S. agriculture and nutrition policies.Food Security and Poverty,

Geometrical multifractality of the perimeter of DLA clusters.

The geometrical multifractality of diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) clusters is investigated by evaluating the Dq spectrum for qP0 using the standard box-counting technique. Using the cluster points themselves as input to the algorithm, deviations were found from the expected multifractal scaling. However on examining the geometric scaling properties of the cluster perimeter, such deviations were found to be signicantly reduced, thus allowing a reliable Dq spectrum to be calculated. Ó 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved