In article ,
Billy wrote:


The following is an extract from Eat Here by Brian Halweil.


pg.25

Probably very few people have had an opportunity to hear both pitches
(for the widening of the locks on the Mississippi and the La Plata in
South America) and compare them. But anyone who has may find something
amiss with the argument that U.S. farmers will become more competitive
with their Brazilian counterparts, at the same time that Brazilian
farmers will, for the same reasons, become more competitive with their
U.S. counterparts.
(snip)
So how can the supporters of these river projects, who profess to be
acting in the farmer's best interests, not notice the illogic of this
form of competition? One explanation is that from the advocates' (as
opposed to the farmers') standpoint, this competition isn't illogical at
all‹because the lobbyists aren't really representing_farmers. They're
working for the commodity processing, ship-_ping, and trading firms who
want the price of soybeans to fall, because these are the firms that buy
the crops from the farmers. In fact, it is the same three agribusiness
conglomerates‹Archer_Daniels Midland, Cargill, and Bunge‹that are the
top soybean processors and traders along both rivers.
(whack)
Welcome to the global economy. The more brutally the U.S. and Brazilian
farmers can batter each other's prices (and standards of living) down,
the greater is the margin of profit for these three giants. Meanwhile,
another handful of companies controls the markets for genetically
modified seeds, fertilizers, and herbicides used by the farmers‹charging
oligopolistically high prices both_north and south of the equator. In
assessing what this proposed_digging-up and reconfiguring of two of the
world's great river basins really means, keep in mind that these
projects will not be the activities of private businesses operating
inside their own private property. These are proposed public works, to
be undertaken at huge public expense..
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FB - FFF

Billy

Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights.
Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.
- Bob Marley