Buying local vs. Trade as aid

[MagnusVS]

Growing produce to sell half way around the world that they can grow there is just silly business sense. If that is the best plan you can come up with you deserve to starve.

It's not silly business sense. If people are willing to pay more for the grain in another country, the farmers will export. You can try to make people support local vegetables/fruit/etc. but most people will buy what's cheapest. And as poor countries in many cases have comparative advantages in producing these goods, it results in the trade we see today. If a country should produce all it's own goods, they would face a big loss in consumer and producer surplus.

DaVulf - Comparative advantages is a good theory and, what it seems to me, very respected by economists worldwide.