By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
It is utterly amazing how the people of Somalia and Kenya are starving while Kenya, for instance, grows French Beans for export to the European Markets; a thirsty crop which the natives do not eat. It is not part of Kenyan cuisine. Those beans are only grown for export to Europe. But there is, apparently, a drought.
Aside from that Saudi Arabia has land in several of those countries at the Horn of Africa where wheat is being grown for export to Saudi cities. But there is a drought, supposedly.
Something, I am afraid to say, does not add up here or compute, and I am having serious problem understanding how crops can be grown for export, thirsty crops at that, while the people of the country itself go hungry and, apparently, are not capable to growing crops.
On the other hand, we must not forget that a great majority of the “farmers” in the countries of that area are, actually, pasturalist and predominately farm livestock, such as cattle, goats, etc. and when the rains fails there is no grass for the animals. Most of those people do not farm, as in growing crops.
Maybe, just maybe, it is time to teach the people how to fish rather that to keep giving them fish.
© 2011
