[faloi]

The trade ministers meeting in Hong Kong for the Doha negotiations will be trying to rewrite the unfair rules that govern agricultural trade around the world. Seventy percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and depend on agriculture to earn a living and feed their families. But instead of being able to freely sell what they produce, they are often denied entry into markets as rich countries protect and prop up their own farmers

Maybe I'm way out of step... Last I heard, the poor farmers that are making their living on farming in other countries don't typically grow much more than they can eat or trade at local markets. I'm not sure I buy that our farmers are "often rich" either. Our tariffs are in place to try to make sure we buy goods from our country, not other wealthy countries. Don't try to couch it as helping the poor rural African farmer.

[Frank T]

"Maybe I'm way out of step... Last I heard, the poor farmers that are making their living on farming in other countries don't typically grow much more than they can eat or trade at local markets."

Don't underestimate the incentive that profit will give African farmers to figure out how to grow more food, and more efficiently. That's how we got to where we are today.

Decades of socialism - income redistribution when there is hardly any money - hasn't worked over there. The post colonial period has been hard for Africans, and they need capitalism to raise their standard of living.

Bob Geldoff can go to hell. There isn't much more you can do to keep down a people that to make the continent one huge welfare state.