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April 09, 2007
Feeding the 3-headed monster
The Times has more on the iniquities of US cotton subsidies and their impact on the poor of Burkina Faso:
Burkina Faso's cotton market has been brought to its knees by “the monster with three heads”: a weak dollar, low world prices and US cotton subsidies. The Times makes the following points:
- America’s 25,000 cotton farmers receive about $4bn in subsidies, allowing them to undercut their developing competitors.
- The same year, farmers in Burkina Faso produced a bumper crop of cotton more efficiently, and yet made a loss of $81 million
- The US subsidies were ruled illegal by the World Trade Organisation three years ago, yet only 10 per cent have been dropped so far.
- Washington still pays many times more in subsidies to these farmers than it gives in aid to Africa each year.
- As a result, world cotton prices are now at the lowest since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
- Burkina Faso depends on cotton for 70 per cent of its cash exports, and income for a quarter of its 13 million people.
The Bush Administration has said it will consider increasing aid to boost African farmers’ productivity, but that has been dismissed by developing nations, which would rather have a “fair playing field”.
One Burkinabe cotton farmer, Mr Outtara, is in despair, saying: “Cotton production is meant to be a way out of poverty, not a means of keeping us there.”
François Traoré, president of the Association of African Cotton Producers, says “Families who don’t even know where America is are being punished by their policies. We are not their enemies. Why are they destroying us with their riches? One day, when we face the same God, how will they explain themselves?”
Tags: burkina faso africa burkina cotton subsidies farm bill justice sahel poverty
Posted by Keith at April 9, 2007 09:41 AM
