"Jim Webster" wrote in message
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"Oz" wrote in message
...
Jim Webster writes

it certainly looks grim. The sensible thing to do in that sort of area
is
for them to diversify out of food production,

That's what they are trying. They have borrowed to buy beads to make
necklaces. The whole thing sounds like a classical pyramid sell and if
it is they will have big debts, a pile of unsaleable necklaces, and
borrowings to boot.

get jobs where their labour
will undercut European wage rates and buy food in.

Unskilled, uneducated and isolated. Hmmm....

Even a part time job that paid enough to let them get a proper diet
would
help break the downward spiral.

There are no jobs. There is little infrastructure.

It's (I think) the third poorest country in the world.


yet there is a plant making JD tractor parts (I know because we had a bit
marked tajikistan. I assumed that it was from a retooled soviet era tank
factory.)

But let us look at it rationally.
1) there isn't a lot of point of them trying to do anything agricultural
because even if they get the land right and yields up they are still just
subsistance peasants producing commodity product. I cannot imagine there
being a market for Tajik grain beer or melons.
2) I would suspect that educational level/literacy is pretty good so they
would happily train up to work in pretty well any industry. At the moment
they would doubtless undercut pretty well most other labour pools.
3) With money coming in they have the money behind them to start
improving
their land, some will buy or rent more, some will give up the land
altogether because they make enough from their job.
4) It needs some investment at the start of the process and for the first
generation it can be tough, but things improve and you end up with a
prosperous urban society with good medical care and adequate food for
everyone. It's called the industrial revolution and worked for us.
Jim Webster

And that's just considering the issues for one family, in one poor country.
Roughly half the global population live this way, some have it worse. It's
actually far more normal to live as they do than as we do. It's been
normal through all recorded history for most people to live that way. We're
the freaks.

Michael Saunby