Potential Economic Consequences of swine flu ALL POSITIVE

A_fiend_for_life

harryhound wrote: »

We in the rich countries will not be "dumping" so much subsidised over produced food onto these third world countries perhaps. Even if we get a bit short of food we will buy up what little they have, because we can out bid them.
A second wave of flu will sweep through the debilitated half starving peasants, Irish famine style. Speculators will buy up and rationalise their subsistence farms.

The price of oil will fall, providing a stimulus for the survivors.

Agree we would not dump so much.

We can certainly out bid poorer countries. Grain prices increased with the 5% to 10% biofuel mix prompting India and I think Thailand to prohibit rice exports other than high value Basmati. I think we can out bid to a degree.

I suspect it depends on how labour intensive and skilled the work is for a given crop, the ability to replace workers and, perhaps, replace workers quickly for more perishable crops.