OT
Joe,
The only way our farmers, even with a certain amount of subsidies, can earn a living is by increasing production, which leads, because of the laws of the markets, to even lower prices. I think this same evolution is happening in the US also. And thanks to free trade, this overproduction is dumped in the rest of the world, because comsumption is not increasing that much (we are already fat enough). A lot of the damage to lokal economies in poor countries is done by that.
You are not helping poor countries a lot by giving them free access to our food market -if even a small farmer here can't compete, how would a micro farmer of Bolivia compete? - It should be a lot wiser if we stop dumping our surplus production in those countries. This should largely prevent drama's like Eritrea, etc., because lokal trade should simply exist, while it is completely absent now.
So we will have to limit production, this will increase prices and give farmers a better income, while in the mean time give an impuls to lokal production and trade in poor countries. For the developing of a country it's much more important that a lokal small farmer can trade his goods with a lokal constructor, that he can pay a lokal teacher, etc.., than if you have a few large companies, run by US or European managers, who can sell there goods on our markets.
I know this is opposite to the holy grail of the free market, but limiting our production is really the best foreign aid we can give.
Bert |
