>
>I don't see anything particularly wrong with them selling their milk where
>they can. The price here has going down the toliet more or less steadily for
>the last 30 years. I doubt this is making much difference.
>
>F. W. Owen
What is wrong with it is that processors have used imports to create
over-supply which depresses prices paid to US farmers. It wasn't that the
US farmers over-produced to deserve a lower price. That over-supply was
brought in from outside our borders intentionally to force prices down and
fatten Kraft's bottom line.
Now, it also wasn't that US farmers were incompetent at their craft. When
Kiwi dollars are valued at 49 cents to the US $1 or Canadian dollars are
worth 65 cents to the US $1, the processors are getting a subsidy, courtesy
the currency exchange rate. Every US farmer who quit, means US production
infastructure being destroyed. No different for the loss of US
manufacturing plants and jobs. Add to this, world trade subsidized by low
oil prices for years, making the cost of shipping foreign product lower
than it should have been. (Yes, so many blame the SUV for guzzling up too
much petroleum........think how much those big ships consume bringing in
spraWLmart's made in Red China merchandise??) So now oil prices are over
$40, sometimes over $50 per barrel and we're maybe starting to realize that
"free" trade wasn't free. And we should guard our food supply independence
better than we did our energy independence.
Our country ran well for years using tariffs and quotas. We need to return
to them. Write your Congressmen and Senators and urge them to vote no on
CAFTA.
Dave G.
WisCOWsin
