Word: smil
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Variety has increased along with quantity; besides rice and wheat, the Chinese are growing and eating more poultry and pork (China has the world's largest pig population, though many are scrawny beasts quite unlike the corn-fattened hogs of Iowa or Nebraska). The biggest payoff of all: Vaclav Smil, a Canadian geographer, calculates that in China, "today's diets appear to supply, on the average, enough energy and protein for normal growth and healthy life." In a country that has been racked by periodic famines throughout four millenniums of recorded history, the average citizen has, finally, enough...
...There is a great deal of natural rhythm in all of these shifts," says Vaclav Smil, professor of geography at Canada's University of Manitoba and an expert on environmental and energy matters. But he says better farming practices can help: "recycling crop residues, planting leguminous cover crops [plants with seeds in pods], planting trees everywhere." Smil also believes that even the poorest people should be charged for their water - "as much as they can bear" - to help ensure both efficient use and quality systems. "Otherwise they will waste as much as anybody else...
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