Media Falsely Claim Ethiopian Climate Crisis as Crop Yields Set Records
By Paul Homewood
Among the top Google News search results today for “climate change,” an article at Insider.com claims “food insecurity from climate change” is “pushing millions of people into cities.” In reality, Ethiopian crop yields are enjoying consistent, impressive gains, and are setting new records virtually every year. Also, Ethiopia’s rural population is growing, not shrinking, as higher crop yields support more farmers and more food production. The Insider.com article being promoted by Google is a perfect example of the dishonest claims made by proponents of the Climate Delusion.
The Insider.com article, titled “Climate change is pushing millions of people into cities like Addis Ababa. Here’s what rapid urbanization looks like in the Ethiopian capital,” asserts that World Health Organization predictions of a growing Ethiopian urban population prove that climate change is devastating crop production and driving people into cities. But that is faulty logic that defies objective reality. In reality, Ethiopia is benefiting from increasing food production and rapid economic growth in its cities. This economic growth is not forcing people away from the farms, but rather enticing many Ethiopians into cities with better paying jobs and the cultural and social attractions of urban life.
Data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), charted below, show remarkable growth in Ethiopian crop yields as the Earth continues its modest warming. Crop yields per acre are currently 80 percent higher than just a decade ago, and double what they were in the year 2000.
Moreover, the FAO reports that fully half the Ethiopian population was undernourished in the year 2000, while less than 20 percent of the population is undernourished today.
It is amazing that a “news” article at Insider.com can paint this spectacular crop growth and beneficial improvement in nutrition as “food insecurity from climate change.”
About the only thing that is true in the Insider.com article is that Ethiopia is experiencing dramatic urban population growth. However, it is a lie that the urban growth is being caused by climate change destabilizing food production and forcing people into cities. According to the FAO, Ethiopia’s urban areas have added 13 million people since the year 2000. However, Ethiopia’s rural areas have added 28 million people since the year 2000. Ethiopia’s urban and rural areas are gaining population – with rural areas experiencing the largest growth – as increasing crop yields sustain more population and bring more wealth to the nation’s people.
Full story here.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
No doubt this good news will soon be on the front page of the BBC news! It’s not made it there yet, but I’m sure Harrabin or McGrath or Shukman are on the job.
Things will improve further when the mega-dam project is fully up and running (assuming Egypt doesn’t start another war).
So, according to the logic, a country on the brink of starvation with a burgeoning population finds the solution is to reduce the arable farm population and increase the urban population. Yet all mouths need feeding no matter what. Could it just be possible that record crop production allows the country to be fed while at the same time supporting a move to the cities? I don’t expect catastrophists to think that through – or even want to do so.
Is this article a honest mistake, or a dishonest one?
Ethiopian population went up by 13+28 = 41 million since 2000? Some mistake surely.
Not far wrong it seems…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_in_2000
Ethiopia’s population has just about doubled since the time of the Band Aid concert.
I think it was Michael Buerk who had called in on a refugee camp on his way back from Southern Africa and did a report which said that mass starvation was widespread in Ethiopia.
As for the movement from the countryside to the cities, much the same happened in the UK in the 18th and 19th centuries as modern farming such as the Norfolk four course rotation system improved crop and livestock yields. Many families who had been scratching a living moved to better paid jobs in the towns and cities.
I once asked a Cambridge don what he had learnt from his researches into agriculture. He said “farms get bigger.”
The population of Ethiopia is over 100million and growing at about 4% per year. The median age is under 20, as you would expect from such a growth rate and low life expectancy. These number need checking.
Did all of this take place after Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization left the country to help the communist Chinese?
It is the meme Paul, that is all global guilt tripping through a miasma of made up stories, false association, bogus correlaton spread by fantasists and liar – journalists don’t know any better thus feel unable to challange even the most fabulous of these infantile tales. And likely, the bosses would prevent it – investigaitive journalism – anyway.
The news is fake, we know this – just switch on the BBC or Sky, Itv and listen and watch for a few moments – the lies come thick and fast like flies settling around a fresh cow pat.