NOW MOVING forwards in our analysis, we could also say that we are in effect also importing breads and cakes, because we are importing the flours that are used to make these two finished goods.
However, we should clarify that to some extent, we are not really importing the flours because in effect we are only importing the wheat grains that are the ingredients in making the flours.
For many decades now, we have been made to believe that flours could only be made from wheat grains, and surely that is not really true. The alternative sources are too many to name, but for a start, I would like to name the flour materials that could be grown by anyone anywhere, even in rooftops or flower pots.
One group would be root crops, and the other would be crawling plants. One advantage of root crops is that these are not affected by floods and typhoons. The advantage of crawling plants is that these could crawl up anywhere, for example in walls and trees.
No, I am not about to advocate the advocate the banning of rice production, but it is really time to rethink our overall economics of rice production and rice consumption.
As I understand it, Israel banned rice production because it consumes too much fresh water, a resource that is scarce there.
Instead of planting rice, they planted high value crops such as oranges. Using the money that they earned from oranges, they imported the rice that they need.
In reality however, fresh water is no longer scarce in Israel, because they have perfected the science of desalination. Aside from that, they have perfected the sciences of rainwater collection, and water recycling, the two other sources of fresh water.
But despite their abundance of fresh water now, they are still not planting rice, and they are still importing rice, using their revenues from exporting fruits.
I have no doubt in my mind that in so many ways than one, the solution to the prevention of hunger and thirst in our country is to support the cooperatives, so that these people’s enterprises could produce not only organic food, but also fresh water.
The production of organic food is market niche that is highly promising for the cooperative movement. By going into that field, the coops would not only increase their incomes, they could also increase the life expectancy of their customers as they will be eating healthier food.
I think that the key to enabling the coops to produce fresh water is to give them the means to produce renewable energy, using sustainable technologies such as wind and solar.
In addition to that, they should be given the rights to distribute water to the last mile, using the water districts as the backbone./PN
