Farmers complain that when rich countries keep food prices low with farm subsidies they shut out the possibilities for poor countries to develop their farming industries. At thepanelist.net, blogger Jean Roberts complains that high food prices hurt the poor. I think she’s right that high food prices hurt the poor in rich countries that do not have a support program for the poor, but for the poorest of developing nations where most people are subsistence farmers, higher prices encourage the production of more crops and thus make localized famines less likely.

The problem is that even the current higher food prices are not likely to create too many incentives for greater production in poor countries because there is the fear that subsidized cheap crops from rich countries will be dumped on local markets and put farmers out of business again.

The path to self sustaining agriculture is a long one . . .

Disclosure: I am lucky, I am not hungry. One-billion people in the world subsist on less than one-dollar a day. I bet most of them are hungry.