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Know Your Environment

Hunger and the Environment

Part 1 - The Ecological Dimensions of Food Production

by Roland Wall, March 2003

"An empty stomach is not a good political advisor."
—Albert Einstein

1. Introduction
2. The language of hunger
3. Why are people hungry?
4. The importance of ecosystem services
5. Conclusion
6. References
   

Introduction

It goes without saying that food—in some form—is a basic need of all living things. Obtaining adequate supplies of food is a defining task of daily existence for everything from the smallest microbe to the largest mammal. On a larger, ecological scale, the fitness of any given group of organisms—i.e. whether they will grow and reproduce in a particular setting—is often determined by how well they obtain nutrient energy from the environment.

One of the reasons humans have been so successful as a species is that we are uniquely adapted, by virtue of intellect and dexterity, to develop sciences like agriculture that bring about surpluses of food beyond what nature alone makes available. But while human food production is now spared the vagaries of hunting and foraging, it ultimately remains just as dependent on natural environmental processes as it did when wild plants and animals were our only sources of food. Acquiring food—both for humans and other organisms—is the focus of some of the most important relationships in the ecosystem.

For humans, though, the supply and consumption of food now seems more enmeshed in other sorts of relationships—social and cultural practices, uses of technology, the functions of economic systems. It is little wonder we forget that human production of food is a reflection of a larger set of ecosystem services. It is also understandable the high degree of confidence—some would say overconfidence—that we have in human ingenuity to coax ever larger quantities of food from our crowded planet.

At the same time, we are often perplexed that this mastery of food production has not freed the whole of humanity from the shadow of hunger. Science and technology have given us the capability to produce food on a remarkable scale, but the most recent estimates indicate that nearly 800 million people are still considered to be undernourished. If the definition of hunger is expanded to include deficiencies of particular vitamins and nutrients, the World Health Organization (WHO) believes this number would becloser to 2 billion. And this, even as agriculture, on global level, seems to be producing more than enough food to meet everyone's needs.

There are fundamental questions, then, that arise when policy makers and scientists seek to alleviate hunger in the world. Do people lack food security—i.e. are they hungry—because of natural and technical limits in the amount of food that can be produced? Is there an absolute limit to the amount of food we can extract from the global ecosystem? Or is hunger simply the result of political and economic failures to effectively distribute the food that is available? What is the future of food security as the number of people on the planet steadily grows? And most important, of course, what actions can we take to alleviate this most basic of human problems? In the next two issues, we will look at some possible answers to these questions. To do this, we begin by considering what "hunger" actually means.

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The language of hunger

We all know on an intuitive level what we mean by "food" and "hunger." Hunger is a variety of physical sensations that indicate a drop in our capacity to function; it is, in a sense, our body's way of informing us that we need additional sources of energy, that we need food. Food, from that perspective is simply something that relieves hunger.

On a societal level, however, these terms have more complex meanings. Defined scientifically, food is ".any nutrient that is taken in or ingested by an organism and used by it to produce energy, build and repair tissue, and regulate body processes." [1] Food security, in general, means having an adequate supply of those nutrients. It has been described by the UN's Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO) as "a state of affairs where all people at all times have access to safe and nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life." [2]

Such human food requirements can be understood on a very precise level. Thus, the FAO can identify hunger (or "undernutrition") as existing whenever people have a food intake below 2200 calories per day. "Malnutrition" on the other hand is a "pathological state due to absolute or relative deficiency of essential nutrient(s)." In other words, "hunger" refers to a general standard of food availability, while "malnutrition" describes a clinical condition resulting from a lack of the particular kinds of food that are necessary to sustain life. Because a healthy diet requires more than simple calories, it is possible for people to be malnourished even when they are seeming to have adequate food intake.

Famine, another commonly used term, is something else altogether. By most definitions, famine is a widespread social phenomena, "an acute food shortage that has ended in widespread deaths and migration in search of food." [3] As such, it is seen as having social—and often political—causes. Famine can also be distinguished as a particular event, one "which disrupts the functioning of a community to such an extent that it cannot subsist without outside assistance." [4]

It is important to distinguish between famine and hunger. As a specific catastrophic event within a circumscribed time and place, famine lends itself to the sort of aid humans have learned to provide victims of disaster. While not minimizing the devastating effects of famine, its causes are often more straightforward and it can be addressed more directly than the vague, though equally devastating, condition of hunger.

"The larger part of hunger," writes O'Neill, [5] "is not dramatic. It shows itself in malnutrition, illness, and expectations of life which remain obstinately low and is the core of persistent and desperate poverty. Famine episodes are only the tip of an iceberg whose invisible and large part is endemic hunger and deprivation"

Famine is "an absolute lack of food affecting a large population for a long time period. Famine is a disaster of food insecurity." [6] Hunger, on the other hand, is the more common and intractable condition. Malnutrition is an even more complex problem related to they types of food to which people have access.

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Why are people hungry?

Although hunger, in its broadest sense, can be a generic problem for all species, for humans it took on new attributes with the advent of agriculture 10,000 or so years ago. No longer dependent on hunting and gathering, agriculture seemed to both lessen the role of nature in combating hunger, and increase the responsibility of human ingenuity. Food supply, while still entwined with the natural systems and cycles, came to depend more on economic productivity and distribution, technical and organizational skills.

In the late 18th century, a writer d Thomas Malthus proposed that famine and hunger were an inherent result of human demographics, that food production would always trail behind population growth. His work was widely read, even influencing natural scientists like Charles Darwin, but providing a stark rationale for human suffering. In the long run, however, where humans are concerned, his hypothesis has proven to be incorrect.

Malthus could not— from his point in history—anticipate the overwhelming influence that science and technology were going to have on food production. Even with the unprecedented size of the current human population, agriculture (in theory) produces enough food to meet the needs of everyone on earth.

Are hunger and malnutrition, then strictly economic and social phenomena? Should efforts to combat and prevent hunger be left to the political system, to developing social infrastructure and eradicating poverty? Or by doing that, do we ignore other, more fundamental issues that may develop in the future? There are two schools of thought on this.

Many commentators believe that the ever improving efficiency of agricultural processes will always allow food supply to out-distance population growth. These writers point to the discredited doctrine of Malthus as the first in a long trend of pessimistic doomsaying.

This group—called the "optimists," by Leisinger [7] —tend to describe agriculture in very linear terms, as a system of inputs (seed, sun, fertilizer, water, labor) and outputs (food, fiber). By this thinking, we need only understand and manipulate the inputs correctly, for the system to give us ever greater quantities of food. For places and people with diminished food security, the assumption is that better management of this agricultural process—and of their socio-economic situation—would propel them away from hunger.

There is ample evidence to support this viewpoint, as most scholars agree that a global shortage of food is not presently the cause of hunger or famine. The World Resources Institute (WRI) noted in a recent report [8] that "Food production has more than kept pace with global population growth. On average, food supplies are 24 per-cent higher per person than in 1961, and real prices are 40 percent lower." Just in the last 30 years ".livestock products have tripled and crop out-puts have doubled, a sign of rising incomes and living standards. Food production, which was worth US$1.3 trillion in 1997, is likely to continue to increase significantly, as demand increases."

Bongaarts [9], writing in 1996 in Population and Development Review, proposes that in the developing world (where the demand for food will be the greatest in the future), dramatic increases in food production are possible. This would come by making changes in four factors: raising the proportion of the total arable land cultivated (currently representing just 32% of the potential land); increasing crop yield through efficiency and new technology, adding additional harvesting cycles in tropical regions, and promoting more widespread food trade. If this is accomplished, Bongaarts sees "no major obstacles to continued expansion of the food supply."

Other writers, however, whom Leisinger labels the "pessimists," make what is sometimes called a neo-Malthusian argument. From this perspective—while there may in theory be adequate food production at the moment—several factors suggest the possibility of major problems ahead.

In the first place, human population growth has reached unparalleled numbers, with the population doubling since 1950 and potentially doubling again within the lifetimes of today's children. While human fertility rates have been declining since the late 1960's, it still seems likely that by 2050 there will be at least 10 billion people in the world.

Although the agricultural system has developed to handle population sizes that were previously unheard of, there is also concern that the configuration of the current population increase will place disproportionate demands on the agricultural sector. In part, this is because the majority of new population growth is taking place in cities, and these cities are mostly in nations with developing and non-industrialized economies.

Some projections suggest that by 2025 over half of the worlds 8 billion people will live in urban areas of developing nations. This urbanization will lead to a sharp rise in the number of "mega-cities"—cities with populations of over 1 million. By 2015 it is expected that 1.3 billion people will live in such cities just in Africa, South America and Asia. The result, according to Federoff and Cohen [10] will be that "in the developing world roughly the same number of rural people will have to provide a very much larger number of urban people with food and fiber or these products of agriculture will need to be acquired from the developed world by trade or gift."

This will affect food security in several different ways. There will be fewer people employed in the growing of food, placing greater reliance on large scale, industrial-style agriculture to feed the urban populations. Hunger will be more problematic as fewer impoverished people will have the option of subsistence farming to supplement their food supply. Proportional demands on food production will be greater, as urban residents tend to eat more meat, vegetables and grain. Higher income urban residents "move up the food chain, i.e. consume more livestock products, the production of which either requires more grain or absorbs arable land." [11]

Although the agricultural system has developed to handle population sizes that were previously unheard of, there is also concern that the configuration of the current population increase will place disproportionate demands on the agricultural sector. In part, this is because the majority of new population growth is taking place in cities, and these cities are mostly in nations with developing and non-industrialized economies.

As dietary practices in high income groups become more complex, there is the additional problem of ensuring that the food available to lower income groups has the proper nutrients. Seemingly adequate diets, at least in terms of calories, can be deficient in such nutrients as iron, Vitamin A and iodine, leading to serious health risks. This issue is sometimes referred to as micronutrient deficiency, and is reflected in the fact that at least 2 billion people lack one or more critical nutrients in their food. Overcoming this "hidden hunger" will require increases both in overall productivity and in developing techniques which increase the nutrient content of the food produced.

Some writers suggest, however, that the steady increases in agricultural production—such as seen during the "Green Revolution" of the 1970's and 80's, may be a thing of the past. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) notes [12] that increases in grain productivity have slowed down and are projected to do so more in the next twenty years, and that the global fisheries are already being harvested at their maximum. While technology has brought about prodigious rises in food production, it has often required sharp increases in such inputs as water, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This, in turn, has led some writers to question the ultimate sustainability of agricultural systems in relation to the world's ecosystem services.

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The importance of ecosystem services

As we have discussed previously KYE 8/2000 life on earth is dependent on the function of a complex set of environmental processes. These processes can be thought of economically as ecosystem "services" or "natural capital." Nowhere is the economic importance of a functioning ecosystem more evident than the production of food. Recognizing this, many scholars now use the term "agroecosystem" to describe the interlocking dependency of agriculture on ecological processes.

It has been suggested that present agricultural practices themselves may endanger the ecosystem services on which they depend. "There is concern," according to Federoff and Cohen, "about the ecological and environmental consequences of expanding the food supply further to feed the still rapidly growing numbers of humans.

This is echoed by cautionary points raised in the same WRI report which acknowledged the growth in agricultural production. "Agroecosystems cover more than one-quarter of the global land area, but almost three-quarters of the land has poor soil fertility and about one-half has steep terrain, constraining production."

Even as agricultural output has skyrocketed and food prices have dropped in the past fifty years, the same time period has seen roughly two-thirds of all agricultural land damaged, ".by erosion, salinization, compaction, nutrient depletion, biological degradation, or pollution. About 40 percent of agricultural land has been strongly or very strongly degraded."

The pattern of population growth is further diminishing the amount of agricultural land available. While most developed nations will have little or no growth in population density during the coming century, the developing (sometimes call "Southern" nations), where food security is the most precarious, will probably see population density grow to 100 people per square kilometer, setting the stage for ever increasing competition to use the dwindling amount of desirable land.

Sufficient areas of productive land and adequate fertile soil are not the only ecosystem service in danger. Maintaining supplies of clean water may be one of the most serious threats to face agriculture as the century progresses. Conversely, food production may itself be one of the major threats to the world's supply of fresh water. According to the WRI, "Irrigation accounts for fully 70 percent of the water withdrawn from freshwater systems for human use. Only 30-60 percent is returned for downstream use, making irrigation the largest net user of freshwater globally.

The FAO describes the problem somewhat differently. FAO Assistant Director-General Louise Fresco, speaking at a meeting of the 2nd World Water Forum several years ago, indicated that, while water shortages are not a global problem for agriculture, they may have significant regional implications.

"It is no accident," stated Ms. Fresco, "that many of the nearly 800 million people who still go to bed hungry every night live in water-scarce and in water flooded regions. Water and food security are intimately linked, access to water is a key to food security."

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an affiliate of the World Bank sees the problem more starkly. "The world is facing a deadly water gap," Ismail Serageldin, then-CGIAR Chairman and World Bank Vice President said [13] the same year. "Some 20 percent more water is needed than is available to feed the nearly 3 billion additional people who will be alive by 2025, and there is no way to manufacture new water."

Agriculture can have a variety of impacts on water beyond simply using it. Non-point source pollution from agricultural runoff has had significant effects on the quality of both surface and groundwater. Nutrients from fertilizer—particularly nitrogen and phosphorous—can lead to problems ranging from "nuisance algae blooms" to rendering water unfit for consumption. Pesticide runoffs can also contaminate water.

Current estimates suggest that productivity will have to be doubled to meet future food needs; this may require that three times as much nitrogen and phosphorous be applied to soils. "nitrogen and phosphorus," writes Tilman [14], "are the two most important limiting nutrients of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems.The impacts of elevated levels of a major limiting nutrient are well documented. Nutrient addition causes dominance by a few, often formerly rare plant and animal species, and the loss of species diversity."

Water use by agriculture can also effect the quality of topsoil. With the use of irrigation in poorly drained areas, the traces of salt found in freshwater are concentrated in the soil as the irrigation water evaporates. This process is known as salinization and is estimated by some to affect up to 20% of irrigated land globally. With the increased use irrigation it seems likely that this will be a growing concern in the future, particularly in arid regions.

Some of the ecosystem services on which agriculture depends are so subtle as to be invisible, yet could result in costly—and even disastrous—consequences if impaired. Southwick and Southwick, agricultural economists writing in 1992 [15], calculated that consumers realize annual benefits of anywhere from $1.6 to 5.7 billion because of pollination by honey bees of 62 crops in the U.S. "Wild" pollinators—as opposed to managed honey bee hives—may contribute almost as much.

Such estimates are not simply academic exercises. Some scholars suggest we may be moving towards an "impending pollination crisis." Nabhan and Buchman [16] note that problems like inadvertent pesticide and herbicide poisoning, and the ecological impacts of such invaders as the African "killer bees," have "devastated the vital and undervalued pollination services provided by beekeepers."

Another little noticed ecosystem service on which agriculture depend is the natural balance of pests and predators, sometimes referred to as natural pest control. Although the use of chemical pesticides has been a critical component of modern, high-yield agriculture, it has long been recognized that their overuse and misuse can cause ecological disruptions.

Pesticides have played a crucial role in increasing crop production and in protecting farm income; in 1997 every dollar spent on pesticides prevented 4 dollars worth of crop damage. Yet some see a pattern of diminishing returns—in 1945, when insecticide use was miniscule, 3.5% of the U.S. corn crop was lost to insects; by the 1990's, with 14 million kilograms of insecticide used a year, losses were about 12%.

In part, this has been the result of pesticide resistance, the process by which insects, fungi and weeds evolve a tolerance for chemical agents. Resistance has sometimes put growers on a treadmill of identifying the effective methods to control pests. Over 500 insects and 100 weeds are now effectively immune to one or more chemical pesticides, with 19 insect species now unaffected by all known chemical control agents.

More importantly, a combination of unintended pesticide damage and destruction of habitat have diminished the populations of the natural predators, parasites and pathogens that act on pest organisms. Some estimates indicate that 99% of potential agricultural pests are, in fact kept under control by the natural regulators (predators etc) in the ecosystem. Lacking these, organisms which were not considered pests in the past get "promoted to pest status" as their populations swell in the absence of natural controls.

Naylor and Ehrlich [17], citing a National Research Council study, note that in the late 1970's all but one of the 25 most important agricultural pests in California had arisen from this process. They conclude that "there is no question that the value of natural pest control services is extremely large by any standard and deserving much more attention than it is currently receiving."

Global warming is another uncertain factor that may represent long term disruption of agroecosystems around the world. While many scientists are now convinced that increases in greenhouse gases and other human influence has led to some degree of change in the global climate, there is great controversy as to the magnitude of the change or its potential long term effects.

Nonetheless, a study [18] by Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment indicated that even small changes in temperature and precipitation could have significant effects on food production. They note that rises in global temperature and changes in precipitation pattern could lead to increases in weed, fungi and insect infestations, to lower food production and to greater economic distress for rural communities.

Along the same line, researchers at the University of Florida [19] found that yields in rice—a critical grain in developing countries—could be affected by relatively small rises in annual temperature. Because temperature interferes with the pollination and life cycles of the plant, a rise of 5.4 degrees in temperature will result in a 20 to 40% reduction in rice yield. The researchers found similar responses in crops such as soybeans and peanuts.

The Harvard study also suggests an apparent rise in the number of severe weather events in the last two decades, which have had major effects on annual harvests. "Climate change will gradually (and, at some point, maybe even abruptly) affect U.S. agriculture. Warming temperatures and a greater incidence and intensity of extreme weather events may lead to significant reductions in crop yields.Since farmers' strategies grow out of experience, they may find that the past will be a less reliable predictor of the future."

To summarize, ecosystem services represent the most critical element of any agroecosystem, far dwarfing the contributions made by human technlogy. A sobering overview of the ultimate costs of losing ecosystem services can be seen in the fate of human society on Easter Island. From the time Europeans first found this tiny speck of land in the central Pacific, observers have wondered how a once large and prosperous culture, advanced enough to produce the famed giant statues that litter the island, could have been reduced by the 18th century to a handful of people that Captain Cook would describe as"small, lean, timid, and miserable."

Scientist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Jared Diamond has traced the sequence of events that are believed to have led to this bleak outcome. [20] Writing, most recently, for the New York review of books, Diamond connects a variety of ecological and archeological research to find a possible solution to this puzzle.

Briefly, the decisive factor is now thought to have been deforestation, with the island's trees essentially eliminated in the first 600 years of human settlement. In addition to normal wood consumption (firewood, shelter, etc), it was the construction and transport of the huge statues that required vast amounts of wood products for rollers and ropes. As the island was completely isolated, and as the residents had no experience with sustainable forestry, at some point the last trees were simply harvested to extinction with no possible sources of renewal.

It may not be immediately obvious why food supplies would be dependent on forests (and it certainly wasn't obvious to the Easter Island residents, at least not until it was too late) but the connections are strong and fundamental. As most of the island was converted to farmland, the vital ecosystem services provided by forests were lost. These included erosion control, nutrient cycling, water retention and climate moderation. Loss of forests also removed most of the sources of wild food that were available, and lacking sufficient wood, the islanders were unable to construct the sturdy canoes they had used to harvest deep water fish that had been an important part of the diet.

The long term results were devestating. As Diamond notes "[t]he further consequences were starvation, a population crash, and a descent into cannibalism. Surviving islanders' accounts of hunger are graphically confirmed by the proliferation of little statues called moai kavakava, depicting starving people with hollow cheeks and protruding ribs." The final result was series of bloody civil wars; by the time Europeans arrived in the 1700's all that remained of the islands peak population of 15 or 20,000 people was a few warring bands living a subsistence lifestyle.

Diamond warns that the modern society should take this as a cautionary tale. "The parallels between Easter Island and the modern world are chillingly obvious." Like the Easter Islanders, our whole planet now shares limited resources; like the islanders in the Pacific, our planet lies isolated in space; and like them, "we modern Earthlings" will not have "recourse elsewhere if our troubles increase. Those are the reasons why people see the collapse of Easter Island society as a metaphor, a worst-case scenario, for what may lie ahead of us in our own future."

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Conclusion

Despite these rather grim sounding observations, the consensus of most experts is that environmental damage and lack of productive capacity are not the primary reason for hunger or famine at present. The more immediate issues seem to lie in the political and socio-economic realms.

Next issue we will examine some of these socio-economic factors as well as some of the solutions which have been proposed. Ultimately solutions to world hunger will have to address the human component of hunger while keeping careful watch on the environmental problems and resource limitations that may be lurking on the horizon.

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References

1. Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology, 2000 Academic Press, Harcourt, Orlando FL. [go back]
2. Food and Agricultural Organization, 1996. Food for All. FAO World Food Summit/European Commission. [go back]
3. Glantz, M. Eradicating Famines in Theory and Practice: Thoughts on Early Warning Systems. Internet Journal for African Studies. No. 2, March 1997.
   www.brad.ac.uk/research/ijas/ijasno2/ijasno2.html [go back]
4. Klinterberg, R., 1977: Management of Disaster Victims andRehabilitation of Uprooted Communities. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Relief and Rehabilitation Commission. Cited in Ayalew, below. [go back]
5. O'Neill, O., 1986: Faces of Hunger: An Essay on Poverty, Justice and Development. London, UK: Allen & Unwin. Cited in Glantz, above [go back]
6. Ayalew, Melaku, 1997. What is Food Security and Famine and Hunger? Internet Journal for African Studies. No. 2, March 1997. On-line: www.brad.ac.uk/research/ijas/ijasno2/ijasno2.html [go back]
7. Leisinger K.M, 1996. Food Security for a Growing World Population: 200 Years After Malthus,Still an Unsolved Problem. Contribution to the Saguf-Symposium, "How will the future world population feed itself?" Zürich, October 9 - 10 , 1996. Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development. [go back]
8. World Resources Report 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life. World Resources Institute, UNEP, UNDP, World Bank. [go back]
9. Bongaarts, J. 1996. Population Pressure and the Food Supply System in the Developing World. Population and Development Review, 22, no. 3 (Sep 96) 483-503. [go back]
10. Fedoroff NV and JE Cohen, 1999. Plants and population: is there time? Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1999 May 25; 96(11):5903-7 [go back]
11. Leisinger, cited above. [go back]
12. Pinstrup-Anderson ,P., R. Pandya-Lorch, R., M. Rosegrant, 1997. The World Food Situation: Recent Development, Emerging Issues, and Long-Term Prospects. International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington D.C. [go back]
13. "Scientists and farmers create improved crops for water scarce world." Press Release, March 20, 2000, CGIAR. [go back]
14. Tilman D. 1999. Global environmental impacts of agricultural expansion: the need for sustainable and efficient practices. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1999 May 25;96(11):5995-6000. [go back]
15. Southwick, E. and L. Southwick. 1992. Estimating the economic value of honey bees (Hymenoptera:Apidae) as agricultural pollinators in the United States. Economic Entomology 85 No. 3:621-633. Cited in Nabhan and Buchman, below. [go back]
16. Nabhan, G. and S. Buchman, 1997. Services provided by pollinators. In: Daily, G. (ed) Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Island Press: Wash. DC. [go back]
17. Naylor, R. and P. Ehrlich, 1997. Natural pest control services and agriculture. In: Daily, G. (ed) Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Island Press: Wash. DC. [go back]
18. Rosenzweig, C., A. Iglesias, X. Yang, P. Epstein, E. Chivian. 2000. Climate Change and U.S. Agriculture:The Impacts of Warming and Extreme Weather Events on Productivity,Plant Diseases, and Pests. Center for Health and the Global Environment. Harvard Medical School: Boston MA. [go back]
19. "For rice, warmer Earth brings uncertain future, UF research shows." Nov. 30, 2000. Press Release, University of Florida. [go back]
20. Diamond, J. 2004. Twilight at Easter. New York Review of Books,V. 51, N. 5, · March 25, 2004. [go back]

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