So all WTO protestors are rich, white people?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Better that than starving to death in a shanty town, which is where all those displaced farmers end up.

Like the left has been successful at keeping third-world farmers from getting displaced.

I suppose the party has reeducation camps for hurricanes, droughts, pests and overworked soils?

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by Drogue
Yes the EU are far worse at it, but the US is not blameless at all either.

Agree with your post, just not the myth that the EU is so much worse. Agro subsidies as measured by the OECD are about 100 billion $ in both blocks; the broadest measure gives 2 % for the EU and 1.5 % of GDP for the US.

Don't have the sources at hand, just a quick search:

http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/archive_rmn/oct_2002-17rmn.html

The same is for tariffs, there was an Oxfam report that shows both about equally guilty.

Two other interesting tidbits:

"The highest share-of-GDP transfers to farmers were in Turkey and Korea, where about five percent of GDP was transferred to agriculture in 2001"

"The most closely watched measure of government support for agriculture is the PSE, which ranged from one to four percent in New Zealand and Australia to 60 percent or more in Japan, Korea, Norway and Switzerland."

[Sava]

MtG, this isn't about economic development... since when did large MNC's and corporate farmers begin to give a **** about people in third-world countries?

[GePap]

And yet, unless those poor states are able to begin by exporting agricultural produce so that they can then gather tax revenue, build up an internal base of savings to develop local business (specially lots of small business for services), these people will not move out of poverty..foreign investement can only go so far, and it is not enough to build up an economy: you need the locals to have enough wealth to ionvest in their own state: tariffs and other handouts to corporate farms prevents this, and if anything sucks money out of the third world.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Drogue
first world agriculture would be dying (it is anyway, but slowly

That's not true. Even as less land is available for agricutlure every year, more and more crops are being produced. What's dying is farming as a way of life and it becoming an industry in the hands of a few instead.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by HershOstropoler
Agree with your post, just not the myth that the EU is so much worse. Agro subsidies as measured by the OECD are about 100 billion $ in both blocks; the broadest measure gives 2 % for the EU and 1.5 % of GDP for the US.

We went over this before and on a per unit basis the EU was much worse.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by GePap
The only way to know that US and EU farners can produce with lower cost s to end their subsidies and let them compete...Oh lord, but we can;t have that, can we!?

This is what democracy brings In the short-term it will make us worse off, thus the voters won't go for it. In the long term (say 20 or 30 years) it will mean we have a viable trading partner who can supply us with cheap agriculture, and means we can stop paying huge sums to subsidize our own farmers.

Originally posted by GePap
Subsidies and tariffs by the rch states on the poor is the greatest hypocrasy in the world economy today.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by Oerdin


We went over this before and on a per unit basis the EU was much worse.

And on a per farmer base the US is much worse. You can play the different agro structures both ways.

[Dinner]

Per farmer doesn't matter since the average US farm is many times larger then the average Euro farm. The only satistic that matters is per unit because then you are comparing like with like.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Like the left has been successful at keeping third-world farmers from getting displaced.

Cuba and Nicaragua certainly had far fewer shanty towns than their neighbors . . . at least until Nicaracgua cried uncle and elected the U.S.'s pets.

I suppose the party has reeducation camps for hurricanes, droughts, pests and overworked soils?

Something like that.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
That's not true. Even as less land is available for agricutlure every year, more and more crops are being produced. What's dying is farming as a way of life and it becoming an industry in the hands of a few instead.

Without subsidies, it would die. In the UK, it already is, however it is doing it slowly. In the EU it is similar. I have little knowledge of the US however.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Drogue
Without subsidies, it would die.

That's entirely possible. Or they'd adapt to new situations, possible by ceasing to let land lie fallow every third year and instead intensely overfarming.

[Japher]

Personally, I think something needs to be done in the Ag community both foreign and abroad. Yet to let a bunch of nut jobs, like the WTO, to decide this is just down right silly. I am also worried that they won't protect consumer interest and will cause more harm than good by letting 3rd world nations grow the food that will end up on MY table...

We moan about GM food, non-organic, organic, bla bla bla... How are we going to trust that these 3rd world countries aren't poisoning us or putting something in the food that can slip under the nose of the FDA? Heck, it's scary, IMO.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Japher
Personally, I think something needs to be done in the Ag community both foreign and abroad. Yet to let a bunch of nut jobs, like the WTO, to decide this is just down right silly. I am also worried that they won't protect consumer interest and will cause more harm than good by letting 3rd world nations grow the food that will end up on MY table...

We moan about GM food, non-organic, organic, bla bla bla... How are we going to trust that these 3rd world countries aren't poisoning us or putting something in the food that can slip under the nose of the FDA? Heck, it's scary, IMO.

This is pretty much what I think.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Per farmer doesn't matter since the average US farm is many times larger then the average Euro farm. The only satistic that matters is per unit because then you are comparing like with like.

"Doesn't matter" because you want to see the US as the lesser sinner. Subsidising relatively wealthier and larger farmers can be even more distorting. What matters even more is the structure of subsidies, namely income vs export.