By Serge Halimi
The International Monetary Fund and the World
Trade Organisation promised that more trade would
help to eradicate poverty and hunger. Foodcrops?
Self-sufficiency in food? They had a better idea.
Local farms would be closed down or encouraged to
concentrate on exports. This would make the most,
not of natural conditions which might be good for
growing tomatoes in Mexico or pineapples in the
Philippines, but of the fact that production
costs are lower in Mexico and the Philippines
than they are in Florida or California.
Farmers in Mali would rely on more highly
mechanised, more productive producers in the
Beauce or the Midwest for grain supplies. The
farmers would pack up, move into town and get
jobs in some western firm that had relocated to
take advantage of cheaper labour than it could
find at home. The countries on the East African
seaboard would lighten their load of foreign debt
by selling their fishing rights to the factory
ships of wealthier countries. The Guineans would
import tinned fish from Denmark or Portugal.
Never mind the additional pollution generated by
transporting all these goods. A life of bliss was
guaranteed and so were the profits of the
middlemen wholesalers, shippers, insurers, advertiserrs.
The World Bank, prime promoter of this
"development" model, now tells us that there may
be food riots in 33 countries. And the WTO fears
a resurgence of protectionism: some
food-exporting countries India, Vietnam, Egypt,
Kazakhstan have decided to reduce exports in
ordeer to feed their own people. What a nerve!
The North is easily upset by other people's
selfishness. The Chinese eat too much meat,
thatâs why the Egyptians are short of wheat.
<http://mondediplo.com/2008/05/01speculate>Link
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<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2008/05/speculate-to-accumulate-imf-wto-and.htm>monochrom
at 5/14/2008 03:55:00 PM
