hen last year he began growing a small patch of sunflowers on a hill sloping down to Lake Victoria in the village of Malela, with help from a program that CARE finances through the sale of American farm goods here.

[snip]
The profit Mr. Otieno earned from the crop rescued his family from dire poverty. Now, with his new earnings, he is able to play with his sons and daughters, who are plump on eggs and milk, at the family’s general store, a tiny shack stocked with goods financed by the sunflower sales.

The question is whether small-scale sunflower farmers like Mr. Otieno would have done better if nonprofit groups had not sold tons of American crude soybean oil, a competing product, to the same Kenyan company that purchased Mr. Otieno’s meager crop. CARE and some other experts say the answer is a clear yes.

This logic strikes me as strange. Why would you use an example where the program worked as evidence that the program needs to be abolished? Shouldn't your example be another farmer down the road, who was already selling oil, without the aid of anyone, and who then was put out of business by the aid program? Isn't it better to send goods to these countries than it is to send dollars, which can often destroy the local currency?

From what I've heard, a lot of the problems in Zimbawe, post-Mugabe is that the country has a large part of it's GDP accounted for by expats sending money home, which results in hyperinflation for those who aren't getting foreign currency from relatives.

It really seems like the issue is just how the aid agency is going to get funded, and that the contrast between using aid funding to send direct handouts versus creating profitable businesses would work under either the old model or the one that CARE seems to want to advocate.

Am I missing something? 

posted by Valatan at 11:54AM CST on August 22

I immediately felt the same as valatan reading the article. "He's doing great, but CARE says he could theoretically be doing better." What kind of example is that? 

posted by natedogg at 12:02PM CST on August 22

Here's another debate on hand ups versus handouts with some well defined points and counterpoints. 

posted by DeltaOscar at 03:12PM CST on August 22