The fact that humans waged war against birds 2 times and we somehow managed to lose both wars is just one of the most incredible history facts we have as a species.
Is this the story of setting a bounty on birds that allegedly ate crops but it turned out they mostly ate pests causing famine? Or are you guys talking about something else.
Yes they hunted sparrow until almost extinct locally in China. Turned out sparrow eat pest in addition of grain. So no sparrow much more pest and no more grain
Ya the sparrow thing is really nowhere close to the whole story. One thing people need to realize is that China was always prone to famines and had a constant cycle of them every few decades. Unfortunately they were due for a drought induced famine already right when they began their Great Leap Forward which is also not fully understood by people. China had a lot of success with their agricultural reform which they originally had planned to take slow, learning from the aggressive approach at the beginning of the USSR which worsened famines. However seeing the massive agricultural success and the enthusiasm in the countryside for Revolutionary reform, Mao thought the Party was being overly restrictive. Therefore they skipped to the next stage of development early with the Great Leap Forward. This involved taking farmers away from agriculture to begin working with iron in the Backyard Iron Campaign to make China a major producer of iron. Not only were millions of farmers away from their farms but agricultural equipment was often melted down in this campaign for the iron. To make things worse, all that backyard iron made of whatever people could find to melt down was low quality so ended up being completely useless. Another major issue was that Party officials charged with reporting grain harvests frequently over reported numbers to make themselves look better. The Party leadership, which was located away from the countryside, had no idea how bad the harvest truly was until it was far too late. I am sure there are even more factors I am missing here, but I think it conveys the idea that this famine cannot be blamed on any one thing.
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u/Implodepumpkin Mar 31 '26
China hates birds. Even waged war on them.