Here’s some new evidence about how poverty impairs mental functioning and promotes risky decison-making. You can scroll down that article to see how sugarcane farmers were less able to think clearly when poor.
The article also mentions brain damage that arises from stunting in childhood, if kids and mothers are malnourished. So poverty hurts generation after generation.
I’m grateful to my fellow blogger B A Usman for drawing attention to this story.
This research about poverty and thinking is relevant, say I, when rich-world academics like me talk about poor-world farmers’ decisions. For example the way GM (genetically modified, genetically engineered, GE) crops are becoming popular in developing countries. Saying that, I might be accused of racism or snobbery, but I’m saying it. People make our own choices.
Science on the Land 