Quote:
Originally Posted by Rog
a large proportion of the third world cannot grow enough food to feed its own people let alone export it to europe! i find it incredible that you can buy fish farmed in zimbabwe at the local supermarkets today when most of their people can't get enough to eat. do you think that flogging their food while their people are starving to earn a bit of foreign currency is a good idea? same for kenya.........
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Obviously I'm not suggesting that countries experiencing food shortages export whatever food they have left. But developing and third world countries have an enormous potential for agricultural production. The problem is that because EU and US protectionism the third world farmers are simply unable to compete with subsidised (not to mention mechanised) farmers from the EU and US. In fact we are dumping our own subsidized overstocks of food for cheap into foreign markets, depriving farmers there from making a decent living.
I'm sure you can find a lot of info online about the problems that our market protectionism is causing for the third world.
like here
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3226
Quote:
According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, EU protectionism deprives developing countries of nearly $700 billion in export income a year. That's almost 14 times more than poor countries receive in foreign aid. EU protectionism is a continuing tragedy, causing unnecessary hunger and disease. The Cold War "iron curtain" between East and West has been replaced with a customs curtain between North and South.
EU protectionism takes a toll on Europeans, too. The rich countries' protectionism costs their citizens almost $1 billion every day. At that rate, you could fly all the cows in the OECD, 60 million of them, around the world every year in business class. In addition, the cows could be given almost $3,000 each in pocket money to spend in tax-free shops during their stopovers.
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hey, $700 billion, that number just keeps popping up doesn't it?
this is also why i think that the whole foreign aid system is a big sham designed to keep our conscience clear so we won't have to deal with the real problems.