U.S. farm policy caused Egypt crisis

From the beginning of the protests in Egypt, I´ve mentioned how rising food prices were most likely a component.  Today I found an great article by Thomas Kostigan at MarketWatch that goes much further.

He says that the fall of Hosni Mubarak was a direct result of high food prices ...and that those high food prices were a direct of US policy.

His article is short and sweet and to the point by point.

Go read it.  Here´s a taste:

"The riots we are seeing on the news today will eventually quell. However, unless we reform our subsidy system and address our true role in world trade there will be more uprisings to come.

And soon enough the violence will wind its way back out of the light and into the shadows, where perverted U.S. policies reside."

We in Argentina are far enough away ...and with enough enormous production capacity ...that we don´t feel the brunt of US agricultural policies like those countries that can´t produce enough food for their citizens.  For us here, US ag policies (subsidies) just keep farmers' and ranchers' prices lower than what they could/should be.

But for countries that have trouble providing enough domestically produced food, US farm policy puts their farmers and ranchers out of business ...and you don´t get many complaints about that from the US.

Even the massive US donations of food to countries in crisis, of which we yanquis have spent lifetimes being so proud, do a lot of damage to the small, local farmers and ranchers of distressed countries ...who are suddenly competing with mountains of free food with their already meager output.