Oz wrote:

Well, you could increase the world price of food.
Then it would be worthwhile for the peasants to produce a surplus.
Then they could have more kids.
Which they could afford to educate.
So they can compete with you, and take your job away.

Ooops, same result ....

Actually when the standard of living goes up people tend to have fewer
kids.

They have more kids in order to have more chance of being looked after
when they are old, if poor.

In New Zealand we have been buying overseas goods for a long time. New
Zealand has been becoming more of a commodity economy, though some forces
in the current govt have been promoting added value.

The immigrant population to New Zealand has been increasing. Many bright
people from Asia have come here. It has meant more work for music
teachers.

There has been some social adjustment necessary. The challenge for a
number of young whites now is to find an identity when many Polynesians
are excelling at sport and many Asians academically. It needs some
attention. No longer is there the quantity of labouring work available
for people who may like to take cannabis and perhaps not think so hard, or
for people who may not be so academically inclined.

And I think we can all do with a bit more physical activity. Not all day
perhaps, let there be time to study, too. Cath said her people had worked
picking cotton a lot, and though it was back breaking at the time, now
their backs are good.

Jim Webster writes
Total waste of time. Who in their right mind is going to buy up a lot of
the agricultural land in the third world. Most of it owned by
subsistence peasants who cannot make a living for themselves.

Because they are paid nothing for cash crops. Then when they grow food for
local market instead, aid (dumping) squashes their market. They are no
longer on their land. It now becomes a commercial farm like anywhere in
the world doesn't it? Unles labour is still cheaper than machines.

If you
want to actually help the third world, as opposed to merely feel good,
then rather than condemn them to a lifetime of back breaking graft
producing small amounts of commodity food, provide the opportunities of
education, real jobs for their children in manufacturing or services.
The problem with that is they will then compete with you and take your
job and that will never do.

Sometimes the way jobs are organised in industry is a whole lot worse than
on farms.

Don't let the bosses implant the idea of pride of having a job as a way to
exploit your years of life.