Dear Sir,

When you make out your Christmas wish list this year, better include, "I want to be a South American farmer."

"Whoa!" Santa will say, "What makes you wish for that, little dirt-farmer?"

Well, just run this across your calculator. The South American farmer has sold $8-plus beans off his combine the past two years, knowing full well he can buy them back in six months for a couple of dollars less during our harvest. Eight dollar beans sure would be a nice harvest-time price for the U.S. producer, Santa.

The South American farmer can buy Roundup for $31 less per gallon than we pay. He can buy Basagran for $52 less per gallon than we pay. He can buy Dual for $31 less per gallon than we pay. These prices seem more fair than ours, Santa. (Figures from Commstock, by David Kruse on DTN - Aug. 26, 1997.) Guess gravity pulls the low prices south, huh?

Beyond these sweet deals, Pioneer, DeKalb, Deere and other U.S.-based multinational corporations are providing state-of-the-art technology, perhaps even before it is available here. Bet there won't be any poor standing crops in South America. They won't start out with any Harosoy or Wayne beans. They won't suffer a corn blight induced by a T-cytoplasm debacle. No sir, these folks hit the ground at full speed. They don't crawl, then walk, then run like the U.S. producer did while his patronage was making the profits required for these corporations to become multinational.

Shaking his head, Santa asks, "Tell me, how does it feel to live in the only country on the face of the earth where the corporations we deal with and the government (same-same) will gladly, gleefully throw their own domestic producers under the bus while they roar down the road to 'do a deal' with another competitor who has yet to realize his 'full potential?'"

Sad.

Dick House
Arthur, Illinois