Miller Magazine Issue: 117 September 2019

62 COVER STORY MILLER / SEPTEMBER 2019 way, and other lobbies, and the whole issue becomes a mess. The export tariffs on grain in Argentina were created by Peron to benefit millers. At times, it led to the absurd of the kilogram of flour being cheaper than the kilogram of grain for the export mar- ket. Now, the most important source of wealth in Argentina is destroyed. What did they get? Only some temporary benefits for a few local ty- coons. When is Golden Rice going to be commercially availa- ble for human consumption? Who is getting in the way of it? This is a grain that could improve the lives of millions, but still, they only let some small farmers cultivate it. The economies of scale of large farming companies could make it availa- ble to everyone, but ideology gets in the way of technology and everyone suffers. The solution to feed safety and the food supply chain is simple: free (liberate) everything. Do you know what happens when you don’t have freedom? Humanitarian aid trucks burning on bridges, like in Venezuela. Prices are a miracle. They convey a lot of infor- mation in a simple number. A kilogram of flour isn’t worth the same to the farmer if he obtained it by hand or by using modern machinery. Neither is it worth the same for a woman who wants some buns for breakfast that for the father who will bake a cake for his daughter’s “quinceañera” (15 years old birthday). When two persons meet and agree on a price, they are exchang- ing information as much as goods. One who informs how much effort he had to put on getting the product there. The other on how much he needs it. Combine the exchanges of millions of individuals, and you have the smartest system ever designed to allocate resourc- es. Mess with the prices, and you can only get shortages or waste. How much is worth a bott- le of water in a common city? Maybe one Euro. How much is it worth in the middle of the desert, for a sur- vivor of a plane crash? Maybe all his belongings. How much is it worth in the middle of the desert, if there is nobody there? Nothing. See? It is about the exchan- ge of information, more than the product itself. If there is a catastrophe so- mewhere, entrepreneurs will flood the area (pun intended) with their products trying to take ad- vantage of the price surges. Block the prices, and you will only depend on humanitarian aid, that many times experiences problems. It is just the same whether it is a government office or an NGO. Prices are the only reliable source of in- formation. You can’t and shouldn’t do away with them. If you care about food, eliminate all quotas, taxes and regulations on it. That will solve any supply problem.