Message-ID: <199503230333.WAA87944@atlanta.american.edu> Date: Wed, 22 Mar 1995 21:50:02 EST From: mailto:LANFRAN@VM1.YORKU.CA> Subject: U.S. Rice vs. Guyanese Rice To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L
In the debate between good U.S. rice and bad Guyanese rice it is too bad that the U.S. Aid program program took the quality of Guyanese rice as a reason for going after the Jamaican rice market (to forstall social unrest from those unable to buy rice at any cost thanks to socio-economic factors inside and outside Jamaica). Actually it is an "excuse" the reasons are more complex. The logical move for an aid program should have been "why is the Guyanese economy having such trouble producing quality rice. Aid there would have helped Guyana and Jamaica. AH! But all this what if is just what if and one does have to live with what is until it can be changed.I too have first hand experience with rice in both countries (although I grew grapes, cotton, peaches, tomaotes, hay, and the like in California and only looked at rice in Guyana. One additional difference in California rice (which I know, other U.S. rice I don't know) is that California rice is raised with subsidized water. In general a subsidized input represents a subsidized prod- uct as the U.S. and Canadian trade negotiators are fond of reminding each other in disuptes over this and that product. In Guyana the quality of the water used in processing rice is not subsidized and -alas- is not as good as the subsidized water in California. There are a number of other differences but a well subsidized agriculture in a country as rich and as large as the U.S. is free to both define what constitutes a "level playing field" here and decide both where it wants to stand, how much of the field it wants to occupy and how the press releases are going to be written.
There is a world of difference between market prices and free markets. There is a vast area for government involvement (or non-involvement). I hope we can steer this discussion back to analysis rather than rebutal. The result may not matter much to the United States but it matters a great deal to small fragile economies such as Guyana's and less small economies such as Jamaica's.
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