As the Fourth Regular Session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture gets off the ground in Bali, Indonesia, it may be useful to reflect, as Steve Lansing does in a fascinating talk, on what modern agriculture can learn from Balinese rice production. It turns out to be a lesson about the benefits of cooperation. ((Oh, and the control of emotions, apparently.))
Synchronised irrigation schedules improve harvest and also reduce variance in harvests. The reduction in variance is potentially significant, because large differences in harvest could discourage cooperation by farmers with suboptimal harvests.
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