[jermaustin1]

> It seems like this idea relies on a long term low wage workforce willing to live on subsistence agriculture.

I think that is already the population. What the attempt seems to be is to create a green belt that prevents further desertification of semi-arable land that they are already subsistence farming on, because if the desert keeps moving, these people will cease to exist.

Captialistically/economically, there is questions as to whether these people should continue to subsistence farm, but if they want to, and it can help keep the desert at bay, then I say more power to them.

[bluGill]

These people right now don't have good options. Get them enough food locally and they no longer need to chase all over trying to find enough work to afford food. In turn that means they can send their kids to school and those now educated kids can in turn apply modern things. Some of that is those kids - the ones who don't love farming - leave to better jobs in the city, while others - those who love farming - apply modern farming techniques (which is sustainable, contrary to popular myth) and produce a lot more food while building up the soil even more.

But if you don't have enough food it all fails. History has taught us that in every corner.

[krmboya]

Can you expound a bit on sustainability of modern farming techniques?

It has always been my understanding that modern farming is reliant on a large industrial outlay and global trade for things like fertiliser and pesticides. And that it also affects the soil in a way that is hard or impossible to reverse (extraction of certain nutrients that cannot be easily replenished naturally)

[bluGill]

This is a very complex question.

Traditional farming is not sustainable because they don't have pesticides and so once in a while your whole crop is destroyed and your whole village starves to death. Some traditional practices slowly destroy the soil over time.

Fertilizers like nitrogen (one of the largest fertilizer uses) are needed for the best yields, but modern farming creates enough as on farm to be sustainable without the addition at lower yield levels.

However when a crop leaves the field it takes away some things like sulfur, potassium, and that needs to be replaced for the next crop. I'm considering this a failure of modern transport to bring those back and not modern farming - but this should feel like a meaningless distinction.

When I say modern farming is sustainable I mean that modern farming is building up soil over the decades. While we need to replace anything actually removed with the crop, the soil is getting better year after year.

[legitster]

I just have strong doubts that people will want to. The video already highlights that the problem in the first place was young people wanting to move to cities or other countries. I would suspect it would revert to the pattern when the UN grant money dries up.