economists, culture, and my back yard

"equally remarkable, even the money that people spend on food is not spent to maximize intake of calories or micronutrients...for the poorest group in maharashtra...out of every additional rupee spent on food when income rose about half went into purchasing more calories, but the rest went into more expensive calories. in terms of calories per rupee, the millets ( jowar and bajna ) were clearly the best buy. yet only about two-thirds of the total spending on grains were on these grains, while another 30 percent was spent on rice and wheat, which on average cost twice as much per calorie...in two regions of china they ( robert jensen and nolan miller ) offered randomly selected poor households a large subsidy on the price of the basic staple ( wheat noodles in one region, rice in the other ). we usually expect that when the price of something goes down, people will buy more of it. the opposite happened. households with subsidies for rice or wheat consumed less of those two items and ate more shrimp and meat, even though their staples now cost less. remarkably, overall, the caloric intake of those who received the subsidy did not increase ( and may even have decreased ) despite the fact that their purchasing power had increased." from "poor economic: a radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty" abhijit v. banerjee and esther duflo._____________________________________________________ i'll admit to a bias about economists...they rely on fallacious concepts like resource substitution to underpin the concept of continued "growth" and they "discount" future profits from resource extraction by claiming the resources should be mined now so the profits can be invested to "grow" more profits short term( read now ) rather than leaving a reserve of non-renewable resources for future use ( also tied to resource substitution )...which seems to me to be selling out the future for profit now...a "science" that isn't much more than a rationalization for greed...banerjee and duflo are clearly economists who don't really understand the concept of culture...what if a cultural bias that favors rice as a superior food to millet ( as in japan )exists in mahrashtra and explains the food consumption engendered by more income? and what if shrimp and meat are status foods in "two regions of china" or what if there is some religious or holiday ( or both ) symbolism in those foods? (turkey at thanksgiving...pyrohy on good friday and on christmas eve in my family?)...economists quantify everything in terms of cost or monetary value and in so doing miss much of the causality they want to understand to generate more "growth"...but price isn't the only quantifier...what if the prices reflect the cultural value rather than the other way around? if this book continues in this vein, 1. it will be a struggle to complete and, 2. i will be questioning whether the best and brightest economic minds at mit have all the data they need...culture recognizes other values and it also recognizes limits...something economists seem to know little about...the top photo is one of the three apple trees growing like weeds in my backyard...i don't think i'll need to mulch them this coming winter...the second photo is one of my blueberry bushes ( on the left ) and a volunteer potato that's been up for about a month now...the blueberry is a perennial and the potato will be gone in july so i don't intend to worry about competition...the third photo is what appears to be one of a number of northern tepuhan teosinte plants that have popped up...i have some in peat pots and more germinating in a damp paper towel in a baggie...i am hoping for cross pollination and seeds...forth photo is of a couple of plants in the turnip row..coming along nicely...finally thirty of the forty-two potato plants i put in three weeks ago are up...a dozen on campus and more to come here...there will be spuds this season.