Five-Year Plans

 

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Back in the day when I was first learning about the Soviet Union, I was impressed when I first heard about their famous Five-Year Plans.  Google provided a very concise definition for the Five-Year Plan:  “(especially in the former Soviet Union) a government plan for economic development over five years. The first such plan in the Soviet Union was inaugurated in 1928.”

Even as a kid, I realized that these plans, though bold and ambitious, were easy to make and hard to execute.  One of the big differences in Soviet style communism and the free enterprise system of the US, was that our style of competition made for better products and services that propelled society forward at a demonstrably faster pace the Soviet system.  I have noted for years, until the demise of the Soviet Union, that they were perpetually “in the first year of a five-year plan.” 

Per Britannica.com, the first Five-Year Plan (1928-1933) focused on developing heavy industry led to a “drastic fall in consumer goods.”  The second (1933-37), emphasized collective agriculture led to famine.  The third (1928-1942) and the fourth (1946-53) were concerned about building armaments and military capability.  Given their performance in World War II and into the Cold War, I have to admit they were moderately successful with these efforts but again at the expense of their populace in terms of consumer goods including food manufacturing and distribution.  The Soviets inspired China to adopt the Five-Year Plan in 1953 focused on developing the industrial base.  It was considered a success given that China was essentially at zero in that regard.  After they started their second Five-Year Plan, they launched a parallel strategic initiative they called the Great Leap Forward which led to chaos, mass incarcerations, and famine.

The reason for writing about this today is because of an article in Time, China’s New 5-Year Plan is a Blueprint for the Future of Meat.  China announced a five-year strategic initiative to make the acceleration to cultivated meats and plant based eggs a national priority.  We eat a lot of meat in this country.  China, with a population three times ours, eats a lot more.  Per the article:

The U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change is calling for a reduction in global meat consumption to help reduce climate-warming gasses. Yet global demand for meat is set to nearly double by 2050, according to the World Resources Institute, particularly in nations with a growing middle class, like China. Per capita meat consumption has tripled since the late 1980s in China, and today the country consumes 28% of the world’s meat, including half of all pork.

Cultivated meat is real meat but grown from cells, some articles say stem cells, of animals.  It is supposed to be healthier because the factories involved can better control the environment and minimize food born illnesses more easily than the feed-lot/slaughterhouse methods used today.  Cultivation would also eliminate the need for antibiotics. 

In talking about reducing greenhouse gases, we have to consider the sheer volume of animals raised for food.  In 2019, the EPA estimated that 10% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US came from agriculture.  A significant portion of this is from animal flatulence and defecation. 

Another factor is how much plant-based food and water is needed to produce one pound of beef.  If you do an internet search, the numbers are all over the place.  On one end, Agfoundation.com claims it takes 2.5 pounds of grain to produce a pound of beef.  On the other end, EarthSave.org states, “It takes 2,500 gallons of water, 12 pounds of grain, 35 pounds of topsoil and the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of feedlot beef.”  I suspect the answer is somewhere in between.  I assume that water and other resources will be needed to produce cultivated meat.  No one is really cultivating meat as yet, but The Good Food Institute reported significant reductions in land-use and pollution.  The land could be used to grow more grains and vegetables for human consumption.

 

Agfoundation.com

 

Will China be successful? Their recent track record in their more market drive approach to communism is much better than their first five-year plans were.  This five-year plan is ambitious and we shall have to wait and see the outcomes.  I have been advocating that the US should consider adapting a bit of the Chinese approach to capitalism where the state and industry collaborate to set objectives of which market segments and industries they want to dominate and then they go after it as shared objectives.  We seem less determined in this regard.

There is a darker side in China as stated in an article in today’s New York Times, Living by the Code: In China, Covid-Era Controls May Outlast the Virus.  The Chinese developed an excellent phone-based software to track people with the disease with passes granted to travel.  The article suggests the one-party government will and perhaps already is using the same software to track dissidents and critics of the government. 

I still think we need a bit more national strategy, but it would have to be very well managed and have safeguard that err on the side of free enterprise.