I've been watching some news/current affairs (as seen through the eyes of Auntie "Beeb") on farming subsidies. Some interesting statistics were forthcoming.
Did you know that the Lone Star State's cotton fields cover an area as big as Wales? And that about thirty per cent of American cotton farmers' incomes are state subsidies? Or that America spends more on subsidising its cotton farmers than it spends on aid to the whole of Africa? They harvest the stuff with gigantic machines - whereas in Africa and the Far East the process is labour-intensive using real people picking cotton by hand.
Each side of the subsidy argument can argue its own corner to its own satisfaction but I'm not convinced when I see an obese Texan in a field - where the only thing that breaks up the monotony of cotton plants as far as the horizon is the occasional "nodding donkey" spewing out more money for him in the way of oil - saying he wouldn't be able to eat if it weren't for the handouts from the state.
I wonder if he realises what it means to live below subsistence levels? I don't, thank goodness, but it makes you think - I hope.
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