the analogy is indeed an interesting one. which is why I feel erasing subsidies at the european end will not improve matters - because the output coming out from africa is still going to be inferior (and in many cases will not meet EU standards for export....)
The other reason, which makes this issue of subsidies mere political feel-good distraction, is that subsidies account only for primary food crops and dairy products - and not commoddity crops like coffee, tea or cocoa -( which are not impacted by subsidies since europe doesnt grow them) -- these commoddity crops are the ones that could potentially make money for the farmers (but dont at the moment). Wheat - is a subsidized crop in europe - in sub-saharan africa it is grown in very small quantities - and there is very little dietary consumption of it. Removing subsidies on that will not make any impact. Maize / Corn - the staple in most of sub-saharan africa - there are some surplus producers within Africa - in most cases inter border accounts for most of maize/corn import / export... Dairy products - maybe there is a case to be made for subsidized european products under cutting local produce ....but even that is for processed items like cheese / powdered milk / butter etc.... Rice / Sugar - small scale production - and most of the imports are from other developing countries Neither are the above are major products for export from Africa (and will probably never be....). In my view the average farmer growing food crops rather than commodity crops is better of in general. THe one thing that could really improve matters for the farmer in africa immediately is by changing the way the commodity-futures market operates in europe (and in most of the developed world). For example: Coffee - an item of import into Europe from Africa. It is a commodity crop which accounts for a lot of speculation in the commodity bourses in europe. Most of the speculators are the ones who have thousands of tons of coffee in stock (a world that revolves around coffee/cocoa majors like nestle / starbucks / cadburys....) It is in the speculators interest to buy the crop at the lowest price and maximise on the price fluctuations in the bourses. Which essentially translates to the farmers getting the bum end of the deal (irresepective of whetther coffee consumption increases or decreases.....). There is no reason (apart from historic ) that coffee, cocoa or tea are traded as commodity/monetary products. If such speculation on futures were to stop, most probably farmers producing the coffee would be able to get a better price..., since the price is no longer being "controlled" by speculators. On 12/2/06, Srini Ramakrishnan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I've often found that Indian plumbers, carpenters and all other sorts of tradesmen perform very poorly in comparison to an american / western equivalent. It's often the case that the workmen's tools are indeed to blame. Doors don't fit into their frames even when they are sold together, screws supplied with the kit are not the same size and so on. I've always wondered if the availabilty of world class tools has made all the difference in the Indian software industry. Imagine if the same os weren't available to all, or the same compiler.
