Re: Africa.

Charles Francis <charles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

>Just a for example. We can pay out of taxes to give ourselves cheap
>food, and then pay again in aid to people who could otherwise have given
>us not quite so cheap food.

We could.

>In a global economy, how much farming would
>be done in this country?

Quite a bit. Its close to centres of consumption and has an excellent
infrastructure. It has a good rainfall pattern and a reasonably constant
climate.

>Is there any reason to farm anything other than
>perishables locally?

Its more economic.

>> Africa is not a great sugar producer. Its an industrially
>>farmed product from (mostly) the second world (s.america, australia,
>>southern north america, asia). The sugar on small islands (typically
>>caribbean) come into europe ast EUROPEAN PRICES. Their economies are
>>going to be *seriously* harmed by the deregulation, they cannot begin to
>>compete with large scale agribusiness.
>
>What has happened to the banana republics btw. I seem to remember
>worries of this sort a few years back. Such worries are news, but after
>the event it's not news so one never hears what happened.

Much the same applies to banana republics but these are mostly those
under american corporate control.

>>Tea - Kenya (4th)
>>Coffee - Ethiopia (7th)
>> - Ivory coast (9th)
>> - Uganda (10th)
>>Chocolate cocoa - several
>>
>>So don't expect the liberalisation of trade to do anything more than
>>push up local prices for the landless in africa.
>
>I don't. You're just filling in some of the detail, thanks. My main
>thesis was that I see no prospect of a solution to it.

Quite.
Actually not really true.
Colonisation was a most effective answer whilst it lasted.
[I can't believe I'm saying that.]

>>And each famine due to populations exceeding their long term carrying
>>capacity will be greater than the next as people who would have died
>>remain alive to breed for the next famine. That's the reality.
>
>I was held up in my tracks believing in aid many years ago, when someone
>had added to the "feed the millions" campaign, "starve the billions".
>Over thirty years later and there is hardly a proposal which even
>addresses the problem.

Quite.

>Perhaps one should put a cordon round Africa and
>make it a no go zone, so that the villagers can get on with it in their
>own way.

They pretty well are.
Hadn't you noticed?

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.

Use oz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [ozacoohdb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx functions].
BTOPENWORLD address has ceased. DEMON address has ceased.

.

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