How we set the poverty trap for Africans

THOMAS HERLIHY (Irish Examiner letters, January 6) says he doesn’t believe EU agriculture policy has had any adverse effect on agricultural production in Africa, and challenges me to come up with facts and figures.

The figures are widely available. The Institute of Economic Affairs in London, for example, has calculated that EU agriculture policy has reduced African export potential by 90% in the case of dairying alone.

The problems facing Africa are immense: war, dictatorship and gangsterism. But we contribute to their problems by effectively blocking them out of our agricultural and food processing markets by using tariffs while artificially undercutting them in their own markets with export subsidies. Given that Africa is primarily dependent on agriculture, this is particularly devastating.