On Wed, 8 Mar 2000 09:09:26 -0500, Jackie Ricotta wrote:
>Remember the old saying: "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a
>man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." Teaching people to use what they
>already have to improve their life seems so much more practical...but not
>profitable. And that is why no big company is in there doing it.
As one who has been regularly involved in this type of work for over a
decade, I'm not really sure how practical it actually is.
With a quasi-industrialised food product there *already* exists some
semblance of a distribution infrastructure. You can find Inka Kola
just about anywhere in Peru, and you could do so even at the height of
the Sendero terrorist campaigns.
Finding someone to *teach,* on family at a time, or even one village at
a time, is much more daunting. One of the reasons that industrialised /
centralised approaches to food, energy, education, etc. have succeeded,
is that in many ways it is *more* practical than any decentralised
alternative.
The distribution system that works for Inka Kola needs no real
additions or improvements to include golden rice (or whatever else) as
an *add-on.* To educate effectively is an entirely different
situation, and if nothing else, the debacle that is American education
should prove to everyone that centralisation and pouring money at it
actually makes things worse.
There is neither enough money, nor a large enough group of volunteers,
to do what you propose. I would guess that for the vast majority of
people, around the world, industrialised is simply *easier,* and
therefore generally the option they choose.
Even on this list, how many people who know *how* to bake their own
bread, actually do it, except for special occasions?
Bart
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