Farming anyone?

The staff is busy getting in the rice harvest, and this time, despite afternoon rain storms of the monsoon, there  is no typhoon or flood in the area, so maybe we will make a profit this year.

We grow organic rice, and now invested in a rice drier (last year much of the wet rice that wasn't ruined by the typhoon deteriorated because of the wait to get it dried).

Chano is also working with the govt' to sponsor classes for new ways to grow rice, by planting it farther apart and not using as much flooding for next year's harvest.

we use local hybrids because the green types are vehement that we not use GM rice, and other more modern ways to grow rice, thereby allowing China and other countries to sell rice a lot cheaper. So the gov't hopes to invest in "organic" farming to export rice to the growing yuppie market in Korea etc.

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But then the gov't has to import cheap chemical grown rice from elsewhere to feed the poor.

That lets people make money off of gov't grants for cheap rice to be imported (when PNoy took office, a lot of gov't paid for rice for the poor after a bad harvest was found rotting in the warehouses). And the latest kerfuffle is this rice smuggling scandal: importing cheap rice that undermines the local farmers ability to make a profit.

In other words, the gov't encourages farmers to grow rice in a way that raises the price of growing the rice and veggies, then the price is so high that they have to subsidize food prices for the poor, and then they complain when cheaper rice and veggies get smuggled in, because such cheap food undermines the local farmers.

And of course, it allows the usual suspects to make a profit in every step along the way.
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But our main problem is to control the population, not the corruption (we are constantly told). So one third of ladies don't have trained birth attendents, but never mind.

The RH Bill, if passed will give out free contraceptives, because " where couples “are in no position to make an informed judgment, the state has the responsibility to so provide”. In other words, obey your betters
  or else...

They could fund 'pill ladies" outside the clinic, which is cheaper and less intrusive, but if you want to coerce people because the UN/US wants you to obey their dictates, you have to use the government authority figures to coerce folks (with the implication that, no pill, no care)...

In the meanwhile, if your kid is sick, they will see you for free (although rumors say some clinics ask for "gift") , but you have to pay for the antibiotics and medicines for your sick kid.
the price of antibiotics 2 to five dollars, ten dollars for an IV...

Yes, I support family planning, but I also have seen black and Native American women pressured into being sterilized in the US...

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Remembering the man who saved a million lives.

mainly in Asia, using private funding. The bad news is that the environmentalists stopped the Green revolution from spreading into Africa.
 
Something to remember the next time you read about China's buying up Africa (and teaching modern methods of farming with green crops, as this horrified green article relates it worked and it will  work in Africa,)

but don't worry: After the environmentalists stopped DDT from saving the lives of African children, they are busy blocking "golden rice" that would prevent blindness. And Rachel Carson is a secular saint, never mind she got the science wrong.
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