This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

[Amberal37]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

For the record, I agree with you about what Jamaicans do when they move abroad - believe me, i have done my full share of supporting visa's to know what a person did or was not willing to do in ja, and what they do when abroad...and the substantiation for me is hearing this comment time and time again from unrelated persons.

I understand why some persons talk about the "dutty wuk" - to the point of wages being extremely low for that work in Ja, so the appeal of earning at least 4x more for same work abroad will win I guess.

But as I say, i think that this is the time for the government to change perception - the perception exists even today... AND THE WAGE STRUCTURES in these industries...but there has to be a good balance between both.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Dr.Dudd</div><div class="ubbcode-body">There are so much to discuss, but the point that stares out at me is this stereotype of Jamaican not wanting to do&quot;dirty work&quot;. That is a creation similar to the one that Jamaicans are lazy&quot;.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Yet these they are all willing to line up and pay big monies and go the the US to do the same &quot;dutty work&quot;.
and are always in demand in the US for their ability to outdo all comers in the &quot;dirty work&quot;.

Every statistic relating to Jamaicans attitude to all forms of work tend to the opposite.
Yet supposedly educated people still keep making these unsubstantiated statements</span>.

This is because it is promoted by those who do not or are not able to pay attractive enough wages. One that people van support a family on.
Is there any work dirtier than to cut burnt sugar cane?
What about bauxite mining? and I won't even think about construction in the industry that cement is the primary material.
The majority of Jamaican immigrant labour are employed in agriculture.
Many have done in annually for all their working lives, and the attractiveness is always more than the demand. yet they are not interested in :&quot;dirty work&quot;.

Now where are the the supporting stories?
When the Jamaican elite want to employ foreigners, they complain that Jamaicans don't want work.
Yet they will not pay Jamaicans a living wage, while they give foreigners, palatial abode and hotel accounts in addition to their bloated salaries.

Yet they expect Jamaican to work for barely above the minimum wage.

Can I say that I hate hearing this?

Or would that be too harsh?? <span style="font-weight: bold">OK I will say it irritates me. I think that should be acceptable. </span> </div></div>

[jah_yout]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Dr.Dudd</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In Egypt Their irrigation system consist of making cistern that hold water over flow of the Nile for the months they don'the water.
That is not simple, but they solve their problem . In Jamaica awe want to have plains to create an irrigation system.
I suppose that is why they are selling of the land .
although we have regular periods of flood, but we refuse to save some of that water to use during the periods of drought.ater

Sooner or later all the mountains will be exported as limestone or bauxite and we will have plains to establish the sort of irrigation we want. Let then starve or riot until then. </div></div>

sounds reasonable....
does j-a possess the ability right now to finance a massive public works investment program aimed at irrigation overhaul?
is it even on the table?

[Dr.Dudd]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

Yes they do,. All they have to do is talk with the chinese about the project. The problem is that the Jamaican governments were mentally prepared to think small. They don't look at the income a project will earn after implementation. They think that it has to be based on present earnings.
A project like a national irrigation scheme, will pay for itself in very short shrift.

Jamaica don;t have any irrigation system to overall.

Less than 5% of fertile lands are irrigated.
That is nothing.
Yet that is what they earn their agricultural export from the less than 5% of irrigate lands.<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Dr.Dudd</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In Egypt Their irrigation system consist of making cistern that hold water over flow of the Nile for the months they don'the water.
That is not simple, but they solve their problem . In Jamaica awe want to have plains to create an irrigation system.
I suppose that is why they are selling of the land .
although we have regular periods of flood, but we refuse to save some of that water to use during the periods of drought.water

Sooner or later all the mountains will be exported as limestone or bauxite and we will have plains to establish the sort of irrigation we want. Let then starve or riot until then. </div></div>

sounds reasonable....
does j-a possess the ability right now to finance a massive public works investment program aimed at irrigation overhaul?
is it even on the table? </div></div>

[johnnycakes]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

Amberal,
The following is an excerpt from your post.
How can you possibly write what you did about China and India meting their food needs?
&quot;The added advantage with this is that in the meantime you are reducing your import demands, thereby conserving your F/C spends. Try even looking at India or China and see how they meet their huge domestic food market.&quot;


I Googled &quot;starvatiion in India and China&quot; and immediately got pages of things like the excerpt that follows:


How to save India from Starvation ?
Articles
0 Comments
The right to food is the right of every person. Every individual must have regular access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food for an active and healthy life. At present, this is a major developmental challenge in India. We cannot feel proud of our achievements in different areas until this basic need of each individual is met.It is an irony of fate that in spite of good grain supplies, in respect of wheat and rice, and domestic production far exceeding the demand over the last more than two decades, India has been witnessing the unmanageably bulging stocks and shortages alternately. It is due to the irrational export and import policy being followed by the policy makers.


This is what exactly the recently released report, State of Food Insecurity in Rural India states. Released jointly by the UN world food programme and M.S. Swaminathan research foundation, the report states that India tops the global hunger chart with 230 million undernourished people who comprise more than a quarter of the world’s undernourished population. It is not merely about food availability, but access to food.


Undernourished People
The new report states that an emerging superpower, India paradoxically tops the global hunger chart with more than 27% of the world’s undernourished population. Indicating that food insecurity is a reality in India the report reveals that while every third adult (aged 15 to 49 years) has a low BMI at less than 18.5, as many as 43% children aged below five are underweight.

Although food prices have begun to fall around the world, according to the Food and Agriculture organization (FAO), in developing countries like India they are not falling so rapidly – or at all. There is an apparent contradiction in India's description as ‘self-sufficient starved sate’, but it cannot be faulted. Deflationary macroeconomic policies, decreasing access to institutional credit, which is becoming prohibitively expensive, and reduction in public investment are the problems facing India.

This grim scenario is characterized by a stark reality: there is availability of food, but little or no access to it. Looking at the market scenario, the contradiction is likely to intensify. During 2008-09, food-grain havest is estimated to be a record 228 million tones. But mere physical availability of food does not translate into accessibility. A household’s access to adequate food depends on its purchasing power, including the implicit value of its own produce, if any, which further depends on sustainable on-farm or off-farm livelihoods. But even if a livelihood ensures access to food, it does not promise nutrition .

[Blackstar*]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-style: italic">COMMON SENSE
JOHN MAXWELL
Sunday, September 20, 2009 (Jamaica Observer)

Much of the Western media and the people they serve are almost reflexively racist. No other people are as concerned with the ethnic credentials of their neighbours. At no time was this syndrome better exposed than in the murder trial of OJ Simpson. TIME magazine apologised for picturing him on the magazine's cover as &quot;darker than the hero he was&quot;. Newsweek opined that Simpson was trying to become white: &quot;He even played golf.&quot;


This week, in illustrating a story about the increase in world hunger, the stock illustration has been a black Somali woman with her terminally malnourished baby. The story was not about starvation in Africa, it was about hunger worldwide: &quot;World Food Aid At 20-Year Low, 1 Billion Hungry&quot; .

Now there aren't a billion people in all Africa, so even the most boneheaded of editors should have used his imagination to illustrate the story differently. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, the tally of the hungered is as follows:

- 642 million in Asia and the Pacific;
- 265 million in Sub-Saharan Africa;
- 53 million in Latin America and the Caribbean;
- 42 million in the Near East and North Africa.

If you add together those hungry in Black sub-Saharan Africa with those in North Africa you will get 307 million, still less than half those hungry in Asia and the Pacific. Yet, the cliché picture is of Africans.</span></div></div>

[Amberal37]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Amberal,
The following is an excerpt from your post.
How can you possibly write what you did about China and India meting their food needs?
&quot;The added advantage with this is that in the meantime you are reducing your import demands, thereby conserving your F/C spends. Try even looking at India or China and see how they meet their huge domestic food market.&quot;</div></div>

The fact is that they have a population of over 1bn each, and do not rely on a dangerous policy of over-importing foods to meet their population needs, so funds are maintained within the country so that it supplements the development of the country development. Despite the fact that many of the methods used in these two countries are not the most modern, and depend on &quot;out-of-date&quot; practices.

Jamaica has a significantly smaller population (0.2% of india's, and even less of China's) to feed, so even adopting some of the outmoded methods (<span style="text-decoration: underline">IF</span> our systems are THAT outmoded), would do well to provide for the 2.8m.

By the way - much as India (possibly also China - though it is difficult to ascertain their figures) have this 27% undernourished - considering that the other 750+million are relatively NOT undernourished, I think that this is a small achievement for them.

[johnnycakes]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

&quot;......By the way - much as India (possibly also China - though it is difficult to ascertain their figures) have this 27% undernourished - considering that the other 750+million are relatively NOT undernourished, I think that this is a small achievement for them).&quot;

amberal37,

If you are saying this in all seriousness, you need to think about just how callous and inhumane your position is.

In the world today, there is enough food to feed every single man, woman, and child on the planet.
The only reason why there is malnutrition and 12 million people dying from starvation is because they do not have the money to buy the food they need to live.
They do not have the money to buy the food they need because they live in capitalist countries where 25% poverty levels are the minimum and 80% the norm in the poorest Third World countries.

As Fidel Castro pointed out and which you fail to see is that there are no starving millionaires.


I understand that you are a strong supporter of capitalism and as such you have to accept the deaths of tens of millions of people, babies, children EVERY year.

I should think that acceptance would bother you just a bit.

I know therefore that you are not a socialist and I assume that you are also not a believer in the teachings of Christ as regards helping the poor and needy as primary and his saying that the rich cannot and will not get into heaven.

Have you any rational defense for your position?

[Amberal37]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">&quot;......By the way - much as India (possibly also China - though it is difficult to ascertain their figures) have this 27% undernourished - considering that the other 750+million are relatively NOT undernourished, I think that this is a small achievement for them).&quot;

amberal37,

If you are saying this in all seriousness, you need to think about just how callous and inhumane your position is.

In the world today, there is enough food to feed every single man, woman, and child on the planet.
The only reason why there is malnutrition and 12 million people dying from starvation is because they do not have the money to buy the food they need to live.
They do not have the money to buy the food they need because they live in capitalist countries where 25% poverty levels are the minimum and 80% the norm in the poorest Third World countries.

As Fidel Castro pointed out and which you fail to see is that there are no starving millionaires.


I understand that you are a strong supporter of capitalism and as such you have to accept the deaths of tens of millions of people, babies, children EVERY year.

I should think that acceptance would bother you just a bit.

I know therefore that you are not a socialist and I assume that you are also not a believer in the teachings of Christ as regards helping the poor and needy as primary and his saying that the rich cannot and will not get into heaven.

Have you any rational defense for your position?

</div></div>
I'll answer from the bottom of your post up...(bottoms up???!)
Anyway...not sure that my spiritual beliefs /lack there of are relevant, but NO - I don't follow the teachings of Christ, matter of fact I don't think that I have ever met anyone who does - despite claims to the contrary.

Rational defence, I cannot defend a position of some people in the world being more &quot;okay&quot; to go hungry, while others waste - but the world is not FAIR. The WORLD is disected into political regions, and there is a game of survival of the fittest - man made.

The system that governs the countries that have the wealth is capitalism, and it is important that ALL countries that seek to develop, should learn and understand the rules of capitalism, and operate it as a means to improve their population.

[johnnycakes]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

The system that governs the countries that have the wealth is capitalism, and it is important that ALL countries that seek to develop, should learn and understand the rules of capitalism, and operate it as a means to improve their population.&quot;

Amberal,

The system that governs the countries that have wealth is capitalism.
The system that governs countries that do not have wealth is capitalism.
In the countries with wealth the poverty rate is about 25%.
In the countries without wealth the poverty rate is considerably higher and reaches 80% in countries like Botswana.

It is impossible for the poorer countries like Botswana to practice capitalism as they not only lack the resources to start up any economy based on capitalist principles but are being exploited by the richer countries of the world which perpetuates their poverty.

Were it possible some of the poorer countries would have already developed their economies.

Neo-liberal capitalism does not work in the Third World but it seems you don't realize that fact.

As long as the rich are allowed to accumulate and sit on their bundles of money, the poor will starve in the Third World by the tens of millions every year for the foreseeable future.

You can be part of the problem or part of the solution.

Accepting capitalism as normal is to be part of the problem.

[Amberal37]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It is impossible for the poorer countries like Botswana to practice capitalism as they not only lack the resources to start up any economy based on capitalist principles but are being exploited by the richer countries of the world which perpetuates their poverty.

Were it possible some of the poorer countries would have already developed their economies.Neo-liberal capitalism does not work in the Third World but it seems you don't realize that fact.

As long as the rich are allowed to accumulate and sit on their bundles of money, the poor will starve in the Third World by the tens of millions every year for the foreseeable future.

You can be part of the problem or part of the solution.</div></div>

Perhaps you can explain how those countries adopting socialism, or communism will solve their problems at this particular point.

They need to wake up to the know what capitalism is about...and practice it as a means to protect their wealth (AND they DO have wealth).
Until such a time as they empower themselves - in a collective enough way - then the practice of anything else other than capitalism will provide a distraction to what they are actually trying to achieve.

[johnnycakes]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

Amberal,

You need to understand that in the Third World only SOCIALIST Cuba, a poor Third World country has eliminated hunger, illiteracy, provides medical, dental and mental health care to ALL its people, has reduced crime and drug use to the point that they are not serious problems and because of their socialist economy they are 45th in the world in human development.

This is done by SHARING the wealth of the country not by trying to make capitalism work in the Third World where, as any Economics 101 student can tell you, it does not work, cannot work, has not worked.

Try to find one Third World country of any consequence and of any size that has pulled itself up out of poverty by utilizing capitalism and especially today's neo-liberal capitalism.

You are correct on one thing; capitalism certainly does protect the wealth in any given country. It protects it for the 5-10% of any given nation's population who own 80% of everything leaving so little for the rest that billions barely live and die annually on only 1-2 dollars a day.


I would like a list of the sources for your information, if possible, so that I can try to understand the logic in what you are posting. A short list will do if you would be so kind as to take the time.

[johnnycakes]

Re: This man irritates me...Jamaica Agriculture minister

Amberal,

Are you not going to respond to my request for your sources of information?
How do you expect to convince me that you are correct without doing so??