How World Bank policies led to famine in Haiti

Or, fixing Haiti by giving her a bigger dose of what got her in trouble in the first place:

from www.therealnews.com posted with vodpod

I am not opposed to allowing farmers from the US to sell food in Haiti. I do have a huge problem with governmental policies that subsidize US farmers. Then the US farmers ship this food to Haiti. After paying for transportation fees, the US farmer is still able to sell the produce for less than what a Haitian farmer can charge for produce grown locally. This can only happen because the farmers do not have to recoup production costs. The US Government has already paid them. This is decreasing the number of people in Haiti that can make a living farming. No longer able to farm, they move into the city hoping to find work, but there is none. We shouldn’t support with our vote or our dollar policies that are destroying jobs internationally. There is nothing wrong with Haiti charging a tax on the imported rice either. Obviously, the seller will pass this cost on to the consumer by raising prices. Haitians who don’t want to pay for the more expensive, imported rice can buy locally produced food. If the foreign rice is of higher quality, people with money will still buy it even if it costs more. People who cannot afford it would still have locally grown rice. Farmers, who would be dependent on their land for their livelihood, would be more inclined to work to restore and heal the land. Encouraging local production of food is good for Haiti.

Related Post: I Would Like to Help, But…