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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (184558)	3/12/2004 4:21:13 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575083

What is awkward about it? The author is trying to take what is a small part of the problem and make it into the crux of the problem. To do that, you have to invert the whole thing around and still it doesn't work. First, most third farmers are subsistence farmers. They can't produce enough food to export because their farming methods are antiquated. They mainly grow enough to feed themselves or feed others in the village near them. So they are not even competing with US farmers. Secondly, many third world farmers when they do stop subsistence farming, and turn to cash crops, mostly go after things that can't be grown here in the US or can't be grown here in quantity......like coffee, exotic fruits, rubber trees, tea etc. Thirdly, when they do get around to competing with our farmers on regular food crops like wheat and rice, they can't compete mostly because their farming methods are hundred years behind ours. For an example, in many third world tropical countries, the farmers practice what's called slash and burn farming where they go in and burn down a portion of a tropical rain forest and farm the land. Because tropical plants and trees take up most of the nutrients in the soil, the soil is not all that fertile and ends up wearing out after three or four growing seasons. So after three years, the farmer has to move and start the process all over again on another piece of land. As you can imagine, this is not the most cost effective way to farm. In addition, they don't have good equipment, good seed, good fertilizers, and good knowledge of what's the best crop to grow for climatic, soil and economic reasons. I don't think the author of your article has a clue about the above stuff so he tries to place the blame primarily on the US gov't and its farming policies. Sorry, Charlie, it's just not going to fly very well. At best, its an awkward defense. ted