renner@uiucdcs.UUCP (renner ) (01/27/84)
#N:uiucdcs:29200061:000:1463
uiucdcs!renner Jan 26 10:27:00 1984
I knew when I wrote my article on starvation and self-sufficiency that it
would generate some replies. Still, I was hoping for a better class of
flame. Phil Polli's article has the look of something typed at 40 words per
minute by an author who strains to think at one or two. I'm sure it made him
feel good to type it, but it really belongs in the wastecan with the rest of
the garbage, not on the net.
However, there were one or two ideas mixed in with the noise, and I will
reply to these. The thesis of my original article is that one cannot
end starvation by sending food to the hungry; instead, one must work to
make the hungry self-sufficient. Polli seems to believe that we must
do *both*. But if we run out of surplus before the hungry achieve
self-sufficiency, we will have done more harm than good (see the
recent article by rabbit!jj). Also, while the surplus food is in some
sense "free", the resources used in shipping and distributing it are
not. I believe that it would be better to use these resources in
addressing the self-sufficiency problem.
His second notion is that sending surplus food to needy countries would
somehow reduce food prices here. Wrong. It makes no difference whether
the food bought under price supports is sent to Africa, stored in
a warehouse, or dumped in the ocean -- so long as it doesn't end up in the
domestic market, the effect on prices here is the same.
Scott Renner
{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner