The people who ultimately benefit from market oriented agriculture are the people who transport the food. They don't really care what you grow, they care about buying it from you for cheap, and then selling it to the market for the best possible price.
The people who do the growing have to nurture life, and that life is delicate and tempermental. they have to worry about the weather, the water, the soil, the pest, and disease. This all takes times and careful monitoring, and farmers don't really have the luxury of switching over to a new crop when another crop doesn't work. I mean, they can, but it's often somewhat of a brutal process, esepcially when the entire farm grown for the market. It's a bit of a risk to grow solely for the market. So, I would say that to a farmer that it's more important to grow what is suitable for the local environment, and try to be somewhat self sufficient.
The role of a farmer is not primarily to make money, money is a bi-product. The role of a farmer is to to the intermediary between the natural world and the material world. They must negiociate with nature to draw out as much organic material as she will allow.
The global south is much more suited for agriculture than the North. Tropical climates have much more growing seasons that the north, and therefore it's value per acre as agricultural land is triple or quadruple. The global tropics will win the market, and feed the world. Africa can feed the world.
The North might be good at growing trees for timber, harvesting fresh water.
So, how do I feel about 3rd world countries that have to compete with American Corn?
Right now we have a situation where countries like India feel that in order to protect it's farmers livlihood it must block other countries from competing. Let's take 2 scenarios, supose India has the cheapest food in the world, then in theory, we wouldn't need to import anything, because no body would be willing to pay a higher price for the same thing that could be grown at home.
The theory is that we should open our doors to all goods and products because our people will get the lowest price the world has to offer. That increases our purchasing power, and purchasing power is what makes a whole nation rich. If I open up imports from the rest of the world, I may be able to buy to potatoes for a dollar cheaper, because they came from China, rather than Idaho. When you multiply this over the millions and billions of things we buy, we all are richer.
The crappy food that comes from America is really subsidized giant farms that produce a crop that would not be profitable on the market, and is then dumped. We have a problem of surplus, and with the surplus we have foods that are cheap on the shelf, but actually come with a high cost. That 2 dollar box of corn flakes actually cost 3 dollars to make.
I think the real problem is that all these governments are able to print money, and then hide inflation. I don't know how they do it exactly, the people just accept it. I think a country that is truly open to trade should be the richest by far, the currency would become strong, and after 30 years of working in an average job the should be able to purchase anything we want for pennies.
If India opens up to American Corn and Wheat, then maybe the price will drop for the Indian consuner. All the while the american tax payer is paying for the huge subsidies to the agribusiness. That's 20 billion dollars of free money to importing countries. America is made poorer in theory. But what we see is that these agri businesses export this into corn flakes, coca cola, all kinds of processed food and fast food products. Our diets shift.
We shouldn't be subject to the whims of the market. The Market may act upon us like the wind or a tidal wave, but we must be a tall mountain. A mountain does change, but the point is that it is resolute and steady. India can open itself up to the world, but it takes a many many strong willed individuals to preserve everything that is precious, our knowledge, our collective memory. Unadelterated Traditional practices allows us to live in a sea of change
When they are done dumping we must be able to heal back, with our own traditional knowledge. When the cheap wheat of the world runs out, we must be able to come back with our traditional wheat that grows well on our many soils.
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