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> I'm not sure if this is supposed to cause outrage or not. I agree with you, but for different reasons. A ""sweatshop"" is much better that the agricultural a
by csdvrx 5y ago
> I'm not sure if this is supposed to cause outrage or not.
I agree with you, but for different reasons. A ""sweatshop"" is much better that the agricultural and industrial protectionism used by the US and the EU to prevent African crops from reaching their markets.
If you think about it on a systemic level, these subsidies are quite evil: we subsidize agriculture so that we don't need to buy their crops, then even worse: we dump the leftovers under names like "international aid" which limits the opportunity for a local industry to grow (same with clothes "donations": the local industry can't compete with a price of 0)
In an ideal world, we would not do such things, crops would be grown where the weather and the labor market provide a cost advantage (Africa is warmer than Europe!), the consumers would benefit from cheaper prices, and other countries would industrialize, grow their middle class and GDP.
- aliswe 5y agodont attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence.
- csdvrx 5y agoUsually, I would agree, but here I think we have malice done under the plausible deniability of incompetence.
- lesuorac 5y agoPretty sure its just grift and good security posture. It's not good for ones country to be dependent on another for survival (food) which is why they subsidize local production. This even occurs on the state level in the US where (I only lived in costal states) costal states enforce a minimum percentage of land towards farm usage. International aid is just not letting a disaster go to waste. Obviously you'd allocate federal money to go to some corporation to administer food in disaster area otherwise they'd go under and not donate to you. Any second order effect of wrecking economies and etc won't be attributed to you so there is only upside.
- ashwagary 5y agoDedollarization fixes this issue, can't rob the world to subsidize crops and x,y,z in the future.
- toyg 5y ago> Africa is warmer than Europe! Unless you're arguing the Sahara is a better environment to grow crops than the French countryside, that's not an advantage...
- csdvrx 5y agoLook right below the Sahara, and I think you'll find a great environment to grow crops. As for the Sahara itself, all it needs is water, and I don't see any factor that would make the cost of drop-by-drop irrigation not competitive or produce more CO2 than keeping giant plastic tents warmed up in Europe (and irrigated, harvested...), especially considering the availability and abundance of solar power in the Sahara of all places!
- toyg 5y agoLol, "all it needs is water" is a bit reductionist. Obviously there are a ton of factors why certain stuff is still grown in Europe despite it being economically challenging to do so. Some of it is the actual will to keep certain products typically local, for cultural reasons that are not going to change. Besides, the few times African countries ended up being economically reliant on crops for exports to rich markets, disaster followed when prices dropped (as they are wont to do from time to time). They are currently busy exporting all they can to China anyway... The African issues are many and multi-faceted, they won't be solved by growing more stuff than they already do.
- Spooky23 5y agoThe reason you have subsidies for production is because it's in the interest of society to have stability in food production. Left solely to market forces, agriculture, which is incredibly capital intensive would be hit with wide price swings that ultimately impact production as farms go out of business.
- csdvrx 5y agoI do not see any evidence of that, and I would see many reasons for the opposite: a worldwide trading network for food production would reduce the impact of price swings, and would provide the best insurance against local disruptions (ex: tsunami, draught...)
- Spooky23 5y agoI’d suggest looking around a bit… this stuff isn’t exactly a secret. There was alot of very insightful writing during the New Deal era, where federal price supports were introduced. Later, in the late 60s/early 70s, stabilizing prices was a policy position taken to blunt the wartime inflation from Vietnam and the Cold War. That’s not to say there aren’t any downsides. The destruction of Mexican corn agriculture post NAFTA is an example. The world could drown in the bounty of cheap American corn.
- eldaisfish 5y agoafrica is poor precisely because agriculture is challenging. Africa is not an agricultural powerhouse, countries in more temperate regions are. See the indian plains, the yangtze delta in china, the american and canadian praries, western europe. Africa doesn't grow all that much so simply being warmer is a moot point. and yes, africa is a vast continent but the regions that permit agriculture are few. Southern africa and the Mediterranean to name just two.