Posted on 12/03/2002 5:22:51 AM PST by SJackson
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:47:36 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Norman Borlaug has a solution for African famine. The engineer of the "green revolution" that saved millions of Asians from starvation arrived on the continent bearing seeds of a new breed of corn, some fertilizer and weed killer, but his strategy is failing for a lack of Western support.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Or
Should we continue the economic development policies used by the Clinton Administration and continue to allow the black people of Africa to be slaves to handouts?
Hmmmm......let 'em starve like Clinton, or help them feed themselves, tough choice isn't it?
Why would he allow fellow blacks to starve to death? Oh, that's right. He's a Liberal.
Since Africans will no longer allow this farming process to go forward in their own countries, I see no reason why land and space, fertilizers and ecologic degradation, etc. that results ought to be allowed in the USA, Brazil, etc.
Africans are somewhat like Californians, in that the latter want electricity but are unwilling to have it made in their own country.
Let them all starve in the dark, until they fall on their knees if a white farmer even comes to VISIT the place.
Condoms were considered WWII military supplies?
Let them all starve in the dark, until they fall on their knees if a white farmer even comes to VISIT the place.
You are a racist. I can't believe there are FReepers who actually think this way. How totally sickening. May others show you similar charity if you are ever in need.
For the first time, they planted in straight rows, with a uniform distance between seeds. They spread the fertilizer on a regular schedule. They sprayed the herbicide in carefully measured amounts.
Then they harvested a miracle. "The crops were so big, and there were ears on each stalk," says Emmanuel Boateng. "We were used to having many stalks with no ears." Farmers accustomed to gathering only five 220-pound bags of corn per acre reaped 15 bags. Never before had the people of Fufuo produced enough to feed themselves and still had something left to sell to others beyond their collection of mud brick homes. They paid off their loans and began planning investments in schools and roads.
But in the years since Dr. Borlaug moved on to spread his methods to other villages, Fufuo has been sliding back toward mere subsistence.
Western governments and the development agencies they fund no longer countenance his methods or provide aid on a large scale to support them, as they once did. Instead, they say, the free market should determine how Africa feeds itself. The Ghanaian government, pressured by its Western creditors to keep its fiscal house in order, doesn't provide fertilizer subsidies, crop-price supports or other equivalent to the cheap financing Dr. Borlaug started the farmers on. Local banks charge 30% interest on loans.
So the villagers of Fufuo are skimping on fertilizer, and their plots are yielding a third less. Without a well-functioning market for their crops, they struggle to sell even these diminishing yields before they rot. The temptation grows to switch to cash crops such as cocoa and ginger to sell to the West, though with more than two million of its people undernourished, according to the United Nations, Ghana needs more of a food staple such as corn.
"We have shown we can produce more, but sometimes we wonder, 'What's the use?' " says Kwaku Owusu, a Fufuo corn farmer.
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Yeah, real simple. Africa is what Africans make it. There are no deeper issues here, nothing more complex than the inferiority of an entire race. < /sarcasm off >
Why don't you read the article again, this time without some preconceived, racist idea of what black Africans are all about? By the way, even American farmers get subsidies so they can afford to keep farming. This is not a simple, black and white (no pun intended) issue.
It's not racist to say that an African thug has ruined the lives of millions with his persecution of white farmers - it's a FACT.
That said, I agree with LG77. The earlier post is racist and ugly.
I notice you did not even bother to deny such an obvious fact, just engaged in abuse.
Who said they're inferior? Plenty of white tree-huggers consider farm subsistence living the zenith of humanity. I stated a simple fact, Africa is what Africans made it. How is it racist to start with acknowledging that fact when analyzing any of their predicaments?
"We have shown we can produce more, but sometimes we wonder, 'What's the use?' " says Kwaku Owusu, a Fufuo corn farmer.
"I could go to work and create more wealth, but what's the use?" That's a hard mentality to overcome. If these people can't or won't grasp something as fundamental as capital accumulation, will they ever have wealth? We can pay for their fertilizer, even pay them not to farm like American farmers, "but what's the use?"
Why don't you read the article again, this time without some preconceived, racist idea of what black Africans are all about?
Who said anything about race? Why are you bringing it up? If I said America what Americans made it would that be racist? Someone not hyperfocused and 'sensitive' about race would see it as a reflection of American culture, not "whitey." Drop your scare word, it doesn't apply to me and I'm not scared.
By the way, even American farmers get subsidies so they can afford to keep farming. This is not a simple, black and white (no pun intended) issue.
I'm not in support of socialist redistribution of income regardless of whether the farmer is American or African. Just last week I posted an article concerning the fleecing of American consumers on the altar of politically connected farming constituents. The problem being faced by these farmers isn't international racism, it's being too dumb to quit pissing in the well bucket - even after they're told!
You're right. But that's not what crystalk said, is it?
I promise you, there are black farmers in America. The problem is not racial -- it's cultural and political.
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