This is a story I saw in the Chicago trib from the AP that makes me want to just throw up my hands not knowing even exactly what to ask for or lobby for.
American soy beans, staple of Indonesian poor, priced out of reach
If anyone has opinions for solutions, I'd like to hear them. This story is another case of an impoverished nation with people suffering because of prices of American commodities. Usually, I'm advocating against American subsidies making cheap products that underprice local foods so that poor countries can't even sell their own goods in their own country. In this case, we have gone corn crazy...planting so much corn that we've created a shortage of soy beans...making soy beans too expensive for Indonesians to buy.
A quote from the article:
"A number of years ago, the farmer got blamed because corn and bean prices were too cheap and farmers overseas were going broke," said Henning, 50. "Now, they are saying the prices are too high and people can't afford to buy the food. So, we kind of feel we are in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation."
I feel like I just don't know enough about economics to know how in the world you regulate this stuff so people aren't starving!
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