Thursday, September 17, 2009

While millions starve.... Belgian farmers dump milk

Even as millions of people in third world countries in Africa, Asia, South America and a small population of poor in the US and EU member nations starve to death due to hunger, angry Belgian farmers dump 3 million litres of milk into agricultural fields. What kind of idiocy, expression of anger is this? I fail to understand. I have seen farmers dumping tomatoes onto the road in rural Karnataka (India) due to the same exasperation about prices. Though the quantities are never this much, it nevertheless is a great loss for not for the individual farmer or the country but the entire humanity.

In Sub Saharan Africa, thousands of people are starving to death. There are riots when Red Cross volunteers distribute food. A few thousand miles away in Europe this kind of gross wastage of milk is happening because a few politicians and corporations are fighting over the price of milk. Farmers are complaining that milk prices have dropped below production costs. The solution is simple stop producing so much milk and switch to other products. Process the milk and sell butter, cheese, and whole lot of milk products. For God's sake don't waste the milk and dump it into agricultural fields.

I guess the financial value of 790,000 gallons of milk is just $4 million not much for many European powers who continue to live on the wealth they looted from rest of the world during the past few centuries.

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