G8 fails to seriously address farm subsidies

Plenty of talk but absolutely nothing new. It's bad enough that even when the G8 agrees on something they often drag their feet and do nothing but in this case, they could not even agree to anything concrete about the massive farm subsidies that destroy agriculture in Africa and prevent Africa from having farm produce to sell.

I just don't see Bush standing up to the cotton farmers or any farmers nor do I see the EU, France specifically, taking on the farm lobby. Financial aid to poor countries is all fine and good (though I would hardly call the "aid" really "aid" because it's more about cutting interest) but as long as the farm subsidies continue, Africa is going to struggle to be competitive.

The message that the G8 sends is that these poor countries need to pick themselves up with their bootstraps but how in the hell are they supposed to do that when the bootstraps have been take away? In a couple of years when nothing changes the West will all complain about Africa failing to do this and that and they will all skip over the failure to deliver a free market.