International trade is regarded as the backbone of the global economy. It is an undeniable fact that it has a positive impact on all concerned. Yet, concrete experiences show that rural poverty and environmental degradation are on the increase in many countries.
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Alongside the USA, the EU is the world’s largest exporter of agricultural products. The EU agricultural market is saturated and European farmers have been producing surplus quantities for many years, most notably milk and meat. Products are kept artificially cheap through subsidies and exported abroad.
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Although more food is being produced today than ever before and, in theory, enough food is available to feed everyone, the number of starving people is on the rise: almost a billion people are without sufficient food. Above all, the rural poor in developing and threshold countries are undernourished because monocultures, debt and land grabbing are rife.
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Commodities that can be traded on the stock exchange and whose prices rise are attractive for investors. It is said that investing capital in this way stimulates the business sector. In reality, however, investors, bulk producers and wholesalers profit from food speculation, but not the producers or consumers in the world’s poorest countries who spend up to eighty percent of their income on food for themselves.
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