Posted on 08/16/2007 6:26:59 PM PDT by decimon
They’re right. The local producers can’t compete with free stuff. That puts them out of business making everyone else more dependent on free stuff. Just more heart of mind thinking that has bad consequences.
To "protect the price of corn" the Brits allowed a government administrator to disallow the import of food for starving people.
I think the CARE administrator who came up with that argument should be dealt with roughly and sent away.
Are the people at CARE under the impression that Nairobi, Kenya is in North Korea?
And strangely, once the corruption ends the need for aid seems to end along with it. Funny how that works out.
-Washington spends an average of $2 billion on food aid programs a year, mostly funneling the help through the United Nations’ World Food Program. According to some aid groups, if the U.S. gave its aid in cash rather than food, it could support about twice as many people.-
Ahhh, but you missed the clincher. They still want free stuff, they just want our cash instead of food.
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In the last two farm bills, the U.S. administration called for a partial shift to cash donations instead of grain, but that was voted down by farm supporters.
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The European Union has spoken out strongly against U.S. food aid policy in the Word Trade Organization, accusing Washington of using such programs to skirt rules limiting agriculture subsidies.
I believe the EU statement is correct but that they do similar.
But in this case, the Kenyan’s are not experiencing a famine due to a disease afflicting their primary foodstuff. The influx of unneeded (by Americans) U.S. wheat DOES negatively impact the Kenyan agricultural sector and thus their economy in general. Furthermore, it’s a perpetuating cycle that will not easily allow the Kenyans (and other 3rd world countries) to improve their standard of living.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I think this is a step in the right direction.
The result is dependency either way.
Whoops, reading on in the article, I don’t agree that they should receive cash from the U.S.like sheana mentioned.
Free used clothes are basically dumped into the local markets which put the tailors out of business.
The same thing happens with the food market. The small farmers grow enough for themselves and a bit for market. But it is impossible to sell what you have grown when there is a surplus of a higher quality lower cost product already there. The end result is that people do not have enough cash to buy the things they can not grow.
Fur shur, the thing that drives farmers out of business (permanently) is if they don't have enough to eat, or if their customers die off.
Here is the "money quote", the real reason we dump cheap "charity" food on underdeveloped nations. Has nothing to do with "Aid" except to US shippers and farmers.
In exceedingly impoverished societies, tailors have no work unless someone brings them cloth with which to work.
Here's the deal, more stuff is good, less stuff is not good. Anything that violates the integrity of that belief is BS.
Oh I agree, but just think about what they could do with all that cash, wheat kind of limits them. ;)
In Kenya people die in a drought/famine because their crop has failed. The famine of 1980-81 was caused by a number of things:
1) The rains failed.
2) There was not engough storage capacity for the 1978-79 bumper harvest.
3) The Kenya government would not admit to shortages until 3 months into FAMINE and did not admit famine until 5 months into severe famine.
4) The Kenya government continued to sell the bumper harvest on the international market for hard currency even after it admitted there was famine. This included selling off the “strategic reserve”.
5) Some Kenyans would not eat USAID donated maize meal because it was yellow corn. Kenyans are used to white maize meal. They believed that the USAID maize was yellow because the US had treated it with “contraceptives to prevent Kenya from having lots of children and being as strong as the US”.
African govenments want cash donations because 20%, 30%, 50% (pick a number) is skimmed off the top by corrupt governments.
No one can compete with free so free has to be used carefully or you create the very situation you are trying to remedy.
“The argument that free or reduced cost food drives farmers out of business is absurd.”
You are dead wrong.
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