… Salvadorians are having to flee their country.  As if criminality (courtesty of U.S. prison gang MS-13) and the narcotics trade (serving U.S. consumer demand) isn’t enough for that poor country, there is a continuing agricultural crisis, with independent farmers unable to compete with U.S. grain exports.  So, what does the U.S. do to slow down the refugees pouring into the United States?

This!

US leans on El Salvador to open up its seed market

El Salvador has been awarded a $277m (£161m) grant to improve its “competitiveness and productivity in international markets” on condition that the country opens its markets to competition, which would undermine the current system.

The previous Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) government, El Salvador’s first leftwing rulers, introduced a seed scheme as a poverty reduction policy. Under the initiative, the poorest 375,000 subsistence farmers are given packets of maize and bean seeds every year. The seeds are locally produced and bought from farmers, providing them with economic opportunities.

The US ambassador to the country, Mari Carmen Aponte, has denounced El Salvador’s failure to comply with the conditions attached to the new tranche of money, which led to the protests. Environmentalists and public health experts have also expressed concerned over the conditions.

Nina Lakhani in The Guardian (4 July 2014). Full article here.