The Butterfly Effect

(image by Eric Setiawan)

This is a bit of a mental meander but have you read about the soybean crises in Indonesia? Here is the article I read. Evidently Indonesia imports 70% of its soybeans from the United States. The Indonesians used to grow their own soybeans but could not compete against cheaper, better soybeans from countries like ours where there are government subsidies supporting soybean growers. The high cost of local soybean production caused the unsubsidized Indonesian growers to go out of business and created the current situation. Soybeans represent a valuable source of protein for poor, working-class families in many parts of the world, Indonesia among them. The article addresses the effect of the rising cost of soybeans on the people of Indonesia. Flooding in the Mississippi delta in June caused soybean prices to rise. Our search for biofuels has also caused the price of soybeans to rise. According to the article, nearly 20% of U.S. soybean production now goes toward biodiesel, up from almost nothing three years ago. The demand for corn, for the same reason, has caused some soybean farmers in the U.S. to switch crops. All of these issues, as well as skyrocketing transportation costs, combined to create a soybean shortage, which increased demand and forced the price up. As a result, poor people in Indonesia and, no doubt elsewhere, are starving. Why doesn’t the Indonesian government help out its farmers so they can go back to growing their own soybeans? The final line of the article, which is a quote from an Indonesian soy food street vendor responding to his customer’s complaints, reads, "I tell them the soybeans come from America," he said, his voice rising in anger. "It is not our fault. I'm being oppressed because of prices in the United States."

When I read that final line I thought, “Great, someone else hates us.” What to do? Who thinks about Indonesia when the Mississippi river floods? I know I am only concerned about the higher prices we are going to see in our own grocery stores. What about our search for biofuels? Who could possibly fault us for that? Isn’t seeking a more environmentally friendly alternative to petroleum fuels a good thing for us all? Evidently not. We really do function in a global economy and I feel like I need to be more aware of it. There really is a butterfly effect and this is a perfect representation. I feel a huge wave of paralysis by analysis coming over me! Can we really put our every move under the microscope of global effect? I don’t know but I’m going to give it some thought.

What do you think? Can we really be responsible for everyone else when we are struggling to make it ourselves?