More starvation in Africa

If we quit wasting corn on ethanol we would have a massive surplus to sell cheaply.

 

The point with the selling of excess food production is that it tends to ruin foreign markets, because they can't compete with our cheap surplus, generating dependency.

And sales of all that cool GM corn seed to Africa for instance, tend with US companies like Monsanto (for which Mrs. Clinton used to work, iirc, suggesting that a change in policies is unlikely) to involve sterile seeds (sold initially at rock bottom prices), the odd ruinous patent lawsuits (as in Canada), again leading to (supplier) dependency (once alternate seeds have been driven out of the market, suppliers then can, and have done so, substantially raise prices - Monsanto is a for profit entity after all, and interested in selling their product at maximum profit for their shareholders, and not a philanthropy engaged in eradicating hunger.)).

But I agree, ethanol is taking away arable land from food production, leading to higher food prices, lower supply, greater volatility due to increased vulnerability to climate events or mishaps. Worse, the poor financial markets have driven investors to speculate with 'hard assets', i.e. raw materials and food instead, leading to price surges.

 

OT: I've already donated some money.

 

Africa as land cannot support the number of people that occupy it.

There's no point throwing money at it, the only solution is for the population to drop, a lot.

 

Hehe, that is quite cold CJ. I am as pragmatic as hte next guy but don't you think war, corruption, chaos and a general lack of development is more to blame? During the great famines in Europe during the 19th century a lot less people lived here and people were saying similar things. "It is very very sad but the land just cant sustain so many people and it is a tragic nescessity that they die". They were wrong then and they are wrong now. There is plenty of food to go around, there is plenty of arable land in Africa. Sure the world will reach a point where it can't sustain more people but we are far far away from that point and I reckon we will run out of energy well before that point and start massive wars over that instead. I hear this a lot though, oh there are too many Asians, oh too many Africans usually from people who consume more resources than any 100 generic Africans or Asians.

 

I agree with CJ. Providing food for a generation now has done nothing but cause the population to increase.

 

As I said, food isn't really the issue. The issue is a lack of stability. The issue is war. Nigeria and South Africa are by far the most populous countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and they are not starving. I will never let people who claim that a "culling" of the poor is needed stand unopposed. I do not know how to create even a semblance of stability on the Horn of Africa but I sure won't accept the view that it is something inevitable, that they are bound to die simply because they had the audacity to procreate. Their part of the world is still extremely sparsely populated compared to our.

 

I agree with joacqin. The real problem is corruption and depravity. Some sort of social stability would be wonderful. I just don't see it as likely.

 

The biggest problem with africa is africa itself.
What do you want more, africans or the african animals?
To plant crops, you have to kill the animals that would eat them(elephants, hippos, buffalos, etc) & the animals that would eat/kill the farmers(lions, hippos, hyenas, etc). This all comes down to money.
The animals are worth more to the gov'ts than(or then? I can never remember!) the people.
Why do you think hunting tags/licenses are so expensive? It is a major source of money for the countries over there. An elephant tag is $12,500 + you have to book at least a 14 day hunt($16,000-24,000). The gov't gets the tag fee & a taxed amount from the safari.
Unless you can get the photo tourists to agree to pay 10's or hundreds of dollars per picture they take to compensate for the lost hunting revenue, the countries are never going to kill enough animals to have enough growing land.
Not to mention the tribal wars that have been going on forever, they make the arabs & jews seem like best friends.

 

@rg58

Err.... no. Just plain no.


Many of the starving areas are not that way due to land reserves and tourism.

Take Somalia, I haven't heard of a lot of tourism spots currently running there yet people go hungry.

You do have war, thugs, and thieves but not a lot of tourism.

Ditto with Zaire/Democratic Republic of Congo.

And Zimbabwe doesn't currently have a war but plenty of thugs and thieves-including those who work for people in positions of political (and perhaps local economic) power.

 

@pplr
Err.... yes just plain yes.

Look at any of the succesful african nations. licensed hunting.
The tribal wars aren't declared wars between nations, they are battles that have been going on forever. A lot of the thug & theif groups are of 1 tribe that brutalises(sp?) others just because of what tribe they are from.
Over here if you have animals in your garden, you put up a small fence or eliminate them(bang!) What do you do when that pest is 7'-13' tall, weighs between 5,000-13,000lbs & pushes down trees for fun? Oh, and they can eat up to 1,000 lbs of vegetation a day.

 

They don't live everywhere, rg, and aren't that numerous. Their impact is imo a lot less than that of hostile neighboring tribes whose idea of an annual visit involves burning, pillage, murder and rape. At this point, humans are better at messing ourselves up than any animal - even in Africa.

Compared to having internal stability and developed infrastructure/agriculture, wildlife management is a drop of water in the sea imo. It's a matter of priorities.

 

The problem is not so much overpopulation as it is complete dysfunctional political systems and war. There is more than enough of potential farmland in Africa to feed the entire continent and its population. Heck, take Zimbabwe. Before Mugabe took over the country was the largest food producer in and exporter in Africa. Now because of Mugabe's land reform the people starve.

Another problem are the funny international organisations of IMF and World Bank. They thought it would be an excellent idea to require liberalized trade as a condition for providing loans to African countries. The result? Africa is stuck in producing raw materials for the developed nations to refine and its food production is killed by the inflow of cheaper European and American products which we hypocritically subsidize with export tariffs (one of the big reasons btw. why the Doha Round is not progressing). This dynamic makes most of Africa dependent upon foreign aid in order to develop. And the development is woefully slow due to domestic inefficiencies.

EDIT: Add WTO to the same list with IMF and World Bank.

 

The key word there is successful. You don't actually think people are taking hunting safaris in Somalia, do you? Let's just say that the tourism dollars aren't exactly rolling in there.

The places that have the biggest problems aren't making money in licensed hunting because no one in their right mind would want to go there. Going hunting in a war zone is not a high priority for wealthy big game hunters the world over, especially when there are other options in Africa you can pick from that aren't in the midst of a civil war.

By definition, if a massive percentage of your population is in the midst of a famine, you are NOT a successful nation.