FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Discovers Africa Needs Tractors—As LaRouche Movement Long Insisted
Oct. 8, 2018 (EIRNS)—All of a sudden, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has discovered that agricultural output in African countries would be much higher if the farmers there had tractors to work their land, instead of using wooden ploughs and oxen (at best) to pull them. The output would be five to ten times higher, experts told FAZ. Swiss globalization critic Jean Ziegler had stated in 2013 that, whereas in 2011, there were only 85,000 tractors on the entire African continent, in Germany alone there were almost 2 million tractors.
One problem faced by African farmers is that, with their miserable income, they cannot afford to buy tractors and other agricultural machinery on the world markets, not even the simple tractor models produced by Brazil’s AGCO, which have no fancy equipment and no GPS, and which cost only $10,000. Another problem is that tractors need diesel fuel, which is not available in such volumes in most parts of Africa because of the lack of the transportation and storage infrastructure.
The implication is that generous low-interest, long-term loans, plus substantial grants, must be made available—a challenge for all those in Europe and Germany who want to really do something constructive in Africa.
The BüSo party in Germany headed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and the LaRouche movement internationally and on many other occasions, demanded decades ago that farming equipment be brought to Africa—and eventually produced there—in sufficiently high numbers to make a difference in the agricultural output. For car-making companies which, like Germany’s Opel, fell into serious trouble 10 years ago, the BüSo elaborated a re-tooling program to start mass production of tractors for Africa. At that time, the idea was rejected by the Opel company; since the company still is not out of its troubles, even after its takeover by France’s Peugeot, the reconversion proposal remains as good as before.
