Mao Zedong's campaign to destroy sparrows caused the starvation of 30 million people Bashny.Net

What causes short-sightedness politikov



In 1958, Chinese leader Mao Zedong declared the little war. He decided that there are four things that urgently need to get rid of - it's mosquitoes, flies, rats and sparrows.

Its scientists reported that a sparrow eats 4, 5 kg of grain per year. According to their estimates, for every one million of dead sparrows accounts it is the amount of grain (and, consequently, food), how much is enough for 60 000 people.

With only this information and did not want to hear about anything else, Mao Zedong launched the Great-billed war in which, as expected, will be attended by all the citizens and try to kill as many sparrows. Only one day on December 13, 1958 killed 194 432 sparrow. During the period of the campaign killed hundreds of millions of sparrows, and they are almost extinct as a species in China.

That's just not the scientists mentioned in the report that the sparrows eat insects such as grasshoppers and locusts can inflict far more damage to crops than sparrows. In the absence of sparrows in a field of grasshoppers starts moving, and has complete freedom of action.

Suddenly, Mao Zedong realized that he had done to the ecosystem, and sparrows hurriedly imported from the Soviet Union, but it was too late. Insect contributed Great Chinese Famine 1958-1961-second period, in which about 30 million people died of starvation.

via factroom.ru