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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (7760)	9/12/2003 3:36:12 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793838

The Author is writing for idiots. Well, he's certainly not writing for ideologues of any stripe. Bless him.

To: LindyBill who wrote (7760)	9/12/2003 4:37:45 PM
From: MSI	Respond to of 793838

Err... who are we to "encourage" any foreign country to make any sorts of changes to their farming? So we shouldn't encourage 3rd world farmers to sell us food because it would lead to them ruining their wilderness What the author is saying is: The benefits of WTO and agribusiness generally accrue to agribusiness, not the local population. They employ fewer and fewer people. Yes, increased productivity may lead to less land per output, but that output won't lead to less use of land -- because agribusiness's role is to maximize global output and corporate profit, not be of any help to the locals. Any hype to the contrary is disingenuous. The truth is better told by seeing results in Latin America and elsewhere. No one seems to want the local sovereign countries make that determination, which is the bottom line, IMO. Instead, we seeing various arguments about type of corporate incursion they will be forced to take. And, of course, its always "for their own good". It appears the fond wish is to put the rest of the world in the category of Japan and Germany, as defeated opponents to be taken over and restructured by an assigned Viceroy.

To: LindyBill who wrote (7760)	9/12/2003 4:48:56 PM
From: Ish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793838

<<So we shouldn't encourage 3rd world farmers to sell us food because it would lead to them ruining their wilderness by opening more land for farming? But we know that increased productivity leads to the use of less land, not more.>> Not really. If you look at South America you can see the opposite happened. When they were plowing with a mule and picking by hand they could only farm so much ground. When John Deere and IH sent salesmen down there in the 60s and 70s to sell them tractors and combines the locals really started clearing the land. Next year SA (Brazil and Argentina) will replace the US as the #1 soybean grower.