NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,506742,00.html
In Cameroon, Globalization's Losers Fight Back and Win
By Uwe Buse

When it comes to chicken, Europeans seem to only like the breast. The rest of the chicken is almost impossible to sell and ends up being exported at dumping* prices. But farmers in Cameroon are refusing to be the victims of globalization, they have fought the import of European chicken legs -- and won.

This article really, really upsets me. It's so full of pointless anger, misinformation and a sort of perverse glee that doesn't want people to be good at what they do, unless it somehow involves hurting others.

The main points:
"Njonga's rise to prominence began with a campaign against European chicken legs. The legs were being sold in the markets in cities and villages, and their mere existence was driving Cameroonian farmers to despair, because the imported poultry was ruining their business, making it virtually impossible for the farmers to sell their own chickens.

The legs were imported from abroad and sold in Cameroon at dumping prices. One kilo went for about 800 West African francs, or €1.20. The domestic chickens, which were only sold live, were twice as expensive by the kilo. The farmers had good reason to be upset."

"In Cameroon, Njonga was being asked to stop this invasion of the chicken legs. But how? Cameroonians weren't exactly being forced to buy the imported meat.

Njonga needed an argument, a fact, anything that would deprive the imported chicken of its competitive advantage. He also needed an adversary. He wanted to emotionalize the debate, achieve a ban on chicken imports and, most of all, send a signal for Cameroon and the whole of Africa."

"The four now knew the names of the suppliers abroad and the buyers in Cameroon. They could also prove that there was corruption in the Ministry of Animal Husbandry, and they recognized that the corrupt officials were either amateurs or extremely sure of themselves. When they searched the import certificates under country of origin, they found the entry "High Seas."

In an effort to ruin the reputation of the imported meat, Njonga had 200 chicken legs inspected by the Centre Pasteur in Cameroon. This would be the next, logical step in Germany, but not in Cameroon, where private individuals are not responsible for inspecting food products nationwide. This explains why the study disappeared shortly before completion, so that Njonga had to make do with an abridged version he managed to obtain from an employee at the institute. According to the report, 83.5 percent of the chicken legs were no longer suitable for human consumption. This was the fault of merchants who had transported the frozen meat around the country without refrigerating it.

Njonga was overjoyed. He had what he needed. It was time to launch his campaign, and he was determined to make a big splash."

"The debate over the pros and cons of imported chicken legs soon spread throughout the country, to the parliament, the streets, the markets, even to weddings and funerals. No one could avoid the issue. Everyone had an opinion, and the majority made it clear that it no longer wanted foreign chicken legs in Cameroon.

In the end the president added his opinion to the mix. Biya condemned the machinations of the importers, doubled the duties on imported poultry, waived the sales tax local farmers had paid on their chickens and added it to the new import duties. As a result, the imported meat became as expensive as the local meat. The president also fired the Minister of Animal Husbandry."

"Chickens are a luxury item in Cameroon once again, as costly as they were before the crisis. Consumers are irate. The chicken farmers are complaining that, like Fridolin Mvogo, they are now dependent on brand-name chickens.

Mvogo is having trouble jumpstarting his production once again, because these chickens are now a scarce and expensive commodity. Demand for the chickens far outpaces supply at the country's hatcheries. Mvogo must be patient. He has no alternative, because he wants what everyone else wants: to be one of globalization's winners one day."

I mean, I know that things like these happen, and will happen as long as the state is allowed to use force to get involved in other people's trades. But that the article would portray all this as something good...that's pretty twisted. I have a feeling that if this was a story about a European lobbyist, it would have a different feel to it.

*Oh, and I should mention that "dumping prices" economically speaking are below cost prices. Usually that is expanded to also include the case where goods are sold cheaper in one market than in another, which is ridiculous really. The article of course doesn't justify calling it "dumping", or explain why the WTO wasn't involved, but as it says, you've got to "emotionalise" the debate. Right? :rolleyes:

Those bastard Cameroon chicken farmers, not letting themselves being crushed by larger international conglomerates and standing up for their local economy. Won't someone please think of the poor international cooperations?

Yeah, this would be one of those instances where the 'invisible hand' would really only shove people already close to the bone straight in the mud. I'm not shedding a tear for those poor chicken importers.

Yeah, this would be one of those instances where the 'invisible hand' would really only shove people already close to the bone straight in the mud. I'm not shedding a tear for those poor chicken importers.
When doesn't the invisible hand do that?

But here I disagree, chicken is now a luxury food again. How is that a good change? Are the chicken farmers now earning more than the imported product costs the same amount? The chicken farmers only sell live chickens, people who who can afford to eat luxury foods don't want to kill and clean their own chickens.

Government at its finest...the farmers get screwed, the consumers get screwed, and the government gets to loot even more money from its people. Of course, irony of ironies is that the domestic chicken farmers are still dependent on the foreign companies for their supplies in the first place, which means they're harming the very people they are supposed to be helping in the first place.

The fact is, globalization is a good thing and has been the single biggest driving factor behind falling poverty and strong global economic growth in the past 20 or so years. In fact, the world economy is currently in one of its biggest, strongest booms in recorded history and will be the strongest in another year.

I mean, I know that things like these happen, and will happen as long as the state is allowed to use force to get involved in other people's trades.

good maybe he can get Africa an actual economy instead of terminal falling despite the sub-Saharan region exporting 30 percent of its GDP

But that the article would portray all this as something good...that's pretty twisted. I have a feeling that if this was a story about a European lobbyist, it would have a different feel to it.

you mean farmers making a living is a bad thing now? Europe is not Africa look at Europe's past we never tried the "ohh lets race to the bottom" we built up an industry with walls and *gasp* it worked!

you missing a few key points as well:

Njonga's second adversary was Europe, the world's biggest economic power, which uses Africa as a place to dump its garbage and other unwanted products. Njonga fought to make sure that this could no longer happen in Cameroon. This too was a spectacular victory, a real triumph. It catapulted Njonga, an educated farmer, from the narrow world of Cameroon onto the stage of international politics.

how dare they refuse are garbage! why you just know that there children will be in slums and the environment ravaged they' ll see!

The consumer's aversion to buying whole chickens and cutting them up themselves keeps a giant cycle of trade moving. Chicken farms in the European Union alone ship 225,000 tons of chicken parts each year to the former Soviet Union, 144,000 tons to Africa, 170,000 tons to the Middle East and 50,000 tons to the Far East.

and who wants to bet that the cost of shipping all this didn't even begin to cover the global damage all that shipping did

They could also prove that there was corruption in the Ministry of Animal Husbandry, and they recognized that the corrupt officials were either amateurs or extremely sure of themselves. When they searched the import certificates under country of origin, they found the entry "High Seas."

oh the officials actually worked for foreign companies who saw this coming?

According to the report, 83.5 percent of the chicken legs were no longer suitable for human consumption. This was the fault of merchants who had transported the frozen meat around the country without refrigerating it.

:eek: and now they expect us to ship over edible food! why we would never expect such a thing!

Ya'll need more Chinese immigrants, they seem to, culturally, prefer dark meat. Not entirely sure why.

But here I disagree, chicken is now a luxury food again. How is that a good change? Are the chicken farmers now earning more than the imported product costs the same amount? The chicken farmers only sell live chickens, people who who can afford to eat luxury foods don't want to kill and clean their own chickens.

um...
1) good change because there is now a safe local industry
2) yes they are selling chickens
3) no thats MEDC citizens

Government at its finest...the farmers get screwed, the consumers get screwed, and the government gets to loot even more money from its people. Of course, irony of ironies is that the domestic chicken farmers are still dependent on the foreign companies for their supplies in the first place, which means they're harming the very people they are supposed to be helping in the first place.

1) this was the government how?
2) the consumers get screwed because there not buying inedible foods:confused:
3) Cameroon has chickens I'm not sure where there are relying on foreign supplies

The fact is, globalization is a good thing and has been the single biggest driving factor behind falling poverty and strong global economic growth in the past 20 or so years. In fact, the world economy is currently in one of its biggest, strongest booms in recorded history and will be the strongest in another year.

IMF 'in recent decades, nearly one-fifth of the world population have regressed' 'one of the greatest failures of the 20th century'

http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,602554,00.html

why is it a bad thing for the government to stop the sale of substandard food?

didnt the US just have a big snit over chinese companies selling us poisoned gluten? was there something wrong with THAT?

sure there is a shortage of chicken in cameroon today. there must have been many many farmers driven out of business by unfair competition. now that its a level playing field they can bring up their production to meed demand.

why is it a bad thing for the government to stop the sale of substandard food?

because it has the word "stop" and "import" in it clearly OP is having a heart attack just from the idea

didnt the US just have a big snit over chinese companies selling us poisoned gluten? was there something wrong with THAT?

because consumers should know better than to buy from China its there own fault I tells ya!

I personally blame the American Health standards more government getting involved where its not wanted

Cameroon has a good football team.






Oh, and good job Njonga. I applaud his efforts. What you don't seem to understand is that eventually prices will come down when more chickens are available. They're expensive because less were bred because of the cheap imports. Globalization is one thing, this is another.

Don't EU chicken farmers get CAP subsidies?

Go veg?

good maybe he can get Africa an actual economy instead of terminal falling despite the sub-Saharan region exporting 30 percent of its GDP
Care to show me those growth figures that tell us they're all "falling". And besides, what do you think those exports are going to be replaced with? It's not like there's anyone else who could buy the produce.

you mean farmers making a living is a bad thing now?
If they're doing it at the expense of consumers, other farmers and businessmen at home and abroad...yes. It's the classic case of taking economic surplus from some and transferring it to others, with the net effect being a deadweight loss to society.

Europe is not Africa look at Europe's past we never tried the "ohh lets race to the bottom" we built up an industry with walls and *gasp* it worked!
Care to back that up?

how dare they refuse are garbage! why you just know that there children will be in slums and the environment ravaged they' ll see!
Ahem, he means chicken legs. I don't know about you, but I like chicken legs.

and who wants to bet that the cost of shipping all this didn't even begin to cover the global damage all that shipping did
Yeah, people should clearly stop trade. Afterall, it emits CO2. Breathing too, while we're at it.

oh the officials actually worked for foreign companies who saw this coming?
Where do you get that from? There was corruption in Cameroon's government in the areas of import and animal husbandry. I'm not particularly surprised.

How is that the fault of anyone but the government?

:eek: and now they expect us to ship over edible food! why we would never expect such a thing!
The food was shipped over edible, refrigerated and compliant with normal standards. Once the food was in Cameroon, it was transported around the country without proper refrigeration.

Again, that is the fault of overseas exporters how? In fact, who tells me that domestically produced chicken is refrigerated when transported around?

Cameroon has chickens I'm not sure where there are relying on foreign supplies
Read the article, the chicken breeds one needs to be competitive still have to be imported from overseas. It's just that now a different sort of importer (the one with better PR and connections with the new - of course now entirely corruption-free - ministry of animal husbandry) is making the big bucks.

IMF 'in recent decades, nearly one-fifth of the world population have regressed' 'one of the greatest failures of the 20th century'
Hehe, I've seen pretty much all the studies done in the past 20 years or so on the effects of trade on growth, poverty and inequality.

I don't know which guy at the IMF said that and what he was basing that on, because I think I would have at least heard of the data before.

Anyways (http://files.tikkun.org/current/article.php?story=2007091611512481):
This terrific news is the latest indicator of the dramatic fall in world poverty over the past few decades. While the percentage of people in the world living with incomes less than $1/day has fallen steadily for several hundred years, world population has grown faster; so the absolute number of people in poverty continued to rise – until it reached around 1.4 billion in 1980. Then one of the most important changes in world history occurred: for the first time ever, the number of people living in absolute poverty started to fall. Actually it started to fall in the 1960s, then it spiked up again during the commodity price shocks of the 1970s, before falling permanently in the 1980s. Since then it has fallen very rapidly to less than 1 billion today.

That’s right: after rising steadily since the beginning of time, the number of people in the world living in absolute poverty has fallen by nearly one-third in less than three decades. Amazing.

I think what they mean specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa is that the population is growing but wealth isn't growing as quickly (unlike in Asia, where this is the other way around). In other words, the way to solve this is to increase the growth of wealth, which is closely related to GDP growth.

So here is some actual data:
http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/3038.html
http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/3333.html
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/09/dollar.htm
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/09/images/dolla-c1.gif
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/09/images/dolla-c2.gif

why is it a bad thing for the government to stop the sale of substandard food?
According to Njonga, otherwise known as the guy who was campaigning to get rid of the chicken legs at any cost. But Fiddlebottoms, you say, it isn't just Njonga, there was a study!
Yes, and can anyone produce this study? It's findings? It's methodology? No, they can't because, rather conveniently for Njonga's cause, the whole thing "disappeared," leaving us with only an "abridged" version that Njonga obtained from some guy he just happened to know. The man who Njonga allegedly obtained this information from isn't even described as a researcher or scientist, just an "employee."
This is so clearly bullshit, I don't even know why I'm bothering to comment.

What you don't seem to understand is that eventually prices will come down when more chickens are available. They're expensive because less were bred because of the cheap imports. Globalization is one thing, this is another.
So then Cameroon can produce chicken legs cheaper than the imports? How do you figure?

Don't EU chicken farmers get CAP subsidies?
I believe poultry is covered, yes. As I said, I know these things are going on, the question is why anyone would applaud them.

And this story is seriously like it comes straight out of an Ayn Rand novel about looters.

Remember kids, rape is bad.

...unless the invisible hand does it!

This is why I don't involve myself in flesh consumption.

Remember kids, rape is bad.

...unless the invisible hand does it!

I'm perplexed as to how this relates.

Care to show me those growth figures that tell us they're all "falling". And besides, what do you think those exports are going to be replaced with? It's not like there's anyone else who could buy the produce.

http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol20no2/poverty-chart.jpg

whilst urban population has been growing which shows that ownership of any real property (farms etc) has also gone down

http://www.unep.org/geo/geo3/english/fig248a.htm

localization would be an idea the last thing an LEDC needs is something as unstable as the global market or some TNC coming over and turning the country to the toilet in an afternoon

If they're doing it at the expense of consumers, other farmers and businessmen at home and abroad...yes. It's the classic case of taking economic surplus from some and transferring it to others, with the net effect being a deadweight loss to society.

Yeah how dare they try and make a living why its as if tariffs have worked before in building a stable economy

Care to back that up?

Erm…http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2003/Nyefreetrade.gif

Here is a picture of how the entire world has faired now as you may know during the 50-60 period in particular the emphasis wasn’t on globalization, a business could receive nice healthy support from government and tariffs notice how the graph looks
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldgr.gif

Ahem, he means chicken legs. I don't know about you, but I like chicken legs.

Njonga's second adversary was Europe, the world's biggest economic power, which uses Africa as a place to dump its garbage and other unwanted products.

did I read that wrong or something?

Yeah, people should clearly stop trade. Afterall, it emits CO2.

Good to see your catching on maybe shipping parts all around the world will ultimately cost more than just doing it locally for more?

Course that kind of calculation involves the environment something which never factors in interventional trade

Where do you get that from? There was corruption in Cameroon's government in the areas of import and animal husbandry. I'm not particularly surprised.

Your not surprised either then good now lets see if there wasn’t a huge TNC do you think there would be import and animal husbandry taking bribes from overseas?

How is that the fault of anyone but the government?

Yep it’s the governments fault for whoring itself out to the world, course you can’t expect much from a dictatorship

The food was shipped over edible, refrigerated and compliant with normal standards. Once the food was in Cameroon, it was transported around the country without proper refrigeration.

Again, that is the fault of overseas exporters how? In fact, who tells me that domestically produced chicken is refrigerated when transported around?


So you accept that there was a problem with the quality on which the chicken was being delivered now you think it is perfectly acceptable for the government to do nothing for this? ;)

Read the article, the chicken breeds one needs to be competitive still have to be imported from overseas. It's just that now a different sort of importer.

You mean the local farmer who has the chickens?

Hehe, I've seen pretty much all the studies done in the past 20 years or so on the effects of trade on growth, poverty and inequality.

And yet you seem so against this man tell me did these studies also count the loss of farms in exchange for a few extra dollars?

I don't know which guy at the IMF said that and what he was basing that on, because I think I would have at least heard of the data before.

Anyways (http://files.tikkun.org/current/article.php?story=2007091611512481):

Yep and there has been a big move in Asia over recent decades towards cities course the article you posted is on how medicine has helped reduce child deaths

I think what they mean specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa is that the population is growing but wealth isn't growing as quickly (unlike in Asia, where this is the other way around). In other words, the way to solve this is to increase the growth of wealth, which is closely related to GDP growth.

You mean more race to the bottom-ism? Tell me do you like slums or something?

So here is some actual data:
http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/3038.html
http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/3333.html
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/09/dollar.htm
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/09/images/dolla-c1.gif
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/09/images/dolla-c2.gif


And here is some things I stuck together in about 10 minuets that wasn’t pouted by the IMF:

BBC report from the International Labour Organisation “unemployment and poverty are growing in Africa, ILO boss Juan Somavia said.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3255940.stm)

Focuses on imports and free trade (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=7257)

I'm perplexed as to how this relates.

These people are being raped by the "benevolent invisible hand" of the free market, and Neu Leonstein is blaming the victim when they don't want to be sodomized by global capitalism anymore.

http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol20no2/poverty-chart.jpg
As I said, population increasing faster than wealth, so more people in absolute poverty. It's reversed in China, for example.

If you look at percentage of population, I believe the proportion is actually going down, though I may be wrong (could've been data for more than just sub-saharan Africa).

whilst urban population has been growing which shows that ownership of any real property (farms etc) has also gone down
No, it shows that people sold the little land they had because they felt they couldn't earn what they wanted (and spend it like they wanted) in the countryside. Someone still owns the property, it hasn't just disappeared.

Fact is that this is not the first time urbanisation has occured. As economies grow and new technology becomes available the opportunities open up in the cities first, so people go there. And for a while it's crowded and there's a lot of poor people around.

Still, I think in hindsight we can agree that the outcome wasn't all that bad. Lots of little individual farms aren't viable anyways, and only the cities have labour markets large enough to allow people to actually sell their free time. In our system it's up to urban planners to make sure the infrastructure can cope, and that's a domestic matter in which international trade is irrelevant.

Yeah how dare they try and make a living why its as if tariffs have worked before in building a stable economy
They haven't. The only case in which they haven't only destroyed society's wealth potential is in the protection of infant industries (and even then people were hurt). This is not such a case.

Erm…http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2003/Nyefreetrade.gif
I'd be interested to see that for industrial goods and the like, the sort of stuff that actually translated into serious economic growth. Tariffs on wine don't tell us a lot about anything other than the politics of the wine trade and Anglo-French relations.

And besides, what's the logic of looking at the 19th century anyways? Do you actually think that whatever worked or didn't work then will have the same effect today?

Trade Liberalization and Growth: New Evidence (www.stanford.edu/~wacziarg/downloads/integration.pdf) - It's a bit big and long, but I think you'll find it interesting.

Here is a picture of how the entire world has faired now as you may know during the 50-60 period in particular the emphasis wasn’t on globalization, a business could receive nice healthy support from government and tariffs notice how the graph looks
Are you sure that's the right graph? What do global population growth rates have to do with this?

did I read that wrong or something?
I think you did. It's a bit of journalistic flair, the article doesn't mention any facts. He's just referring to the fact that the chicken legs aren't in demand in Europe, so he somehow infers that they're "garbage" that just being dumped in Africa.

Course that kind of calculation involves the environment something which never factors in interventional trade
Hey, if you can come up with some figures, I'll gladly listen.

Your not surprised either then good now lets see if there wasn’t a huge TNC do you think there would be import and animal husbandry taking bribes from overseas?
No, they'd be taking bribes from home.

You can't blame a company for bribery. Normally the company and the politician would be seperate people, not having to care about each other. But with all those laws and regulations, politicians force companies to deal with them. So there has to be some sort of interaction (or trade, the two words are interchangable anyways) between the two. But what has a company to give? It only exists to make money, money is the only value it has. On what level is it supposed to trade with a politician if not in money? "Good Will"? "The greater good"? Companies don't know about these things, they aren't equipped to speak in that sort of language.

You can't be surprised if a company tries to use money in exchange for goods and services, because that's the reason it exists. It's the politician who is supposed to be thinking according to different criteria and operate in a different environment. It's the politician who breaches our trust, not the company.

Yep it’s the governments fault for whoring itself out to the world, course you can’t expect much from a dictatorship
So you can provide evidence that relatively closed economies with high tariffs and other trade barriers exhibit lower corruption?

So you accept that there was a problem with the quality on which the chicken was being delivered now you think it is perfectly acceptable for the government to do nothing for this? ;)
It was a domestic problem associated with the lack of refrigeration of domestically transported chicken. Of course there's scope for the government to do something.

The question is: why the hell would anyone think that tariffs were even related to that problem?

Unless of course no one does, and the quality issues were just the pretense Njonga was looking for.

You mean the local farmer who has the chickens?
The local farmer who grows special big-breasted chickens. Whenever he needs new chickens to stock up, he has to get them overseas, now at higher prices because everyone is forced to get into this business in Cameroon. Letting others worry about growing chickens is no longer an option.

And yet you seem so against this man tell me did these studies also count the loss of farms in exchange for a few extra dollars?
Huh? Is a loss of a farm not measured in dollars?

Yep and there has been a big move in Asia over recent decades towards cities course the article you posted is on how medicine has helped reduce child deaths
And...?

You mean more race to the bottom-ism? Tell me do you like slums or something?
What is a race to the bottom? Can you tell me why you would think such a thing is occuring?

Here's another one: siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/22015_Growth_is_Good_for_Poor.pdf

It talks about the relationship between GDP growth and the associated changes in the numbers of people in absolute poverty. If you don't believe the findings, I think I've also got the dataset he used somewhere, so you can do your own econometrics.

And here is some things I stuck together in about 10 minuets that wasn’t pouted by the IMF:

BBC report from the International Labour Organisation “unemployment and poverty are growing in Africa, ILO boss Juan Somavia said.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3255940.stm)
A news article? I provide you with massive studies, and you reply with a news article? About a guy from the ILO, no less?

Focuses on imports and free trade (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=7257)
And is of no consequence because it provides no evidence, nor addresses my point.

Oh, and my study was from the World Bank, not the IMF.

Bump?

Bump?
You really are a masochist aren't you?

I'm perplexed as to how this relates.

Either that, or the hand coupled with crucifix on "The Exorcist".

You really are a masochist aren't you?
You know it. ;)

I don't know, this is one of the few areas where there is real, objective evidence. There's still some funny part of me that thinks it will be enough to convince people...