ALTERNATIVE MARKET ACCESS IS NEEDED

I live in south Texas, and we have a lot of farmers and ranchers, so I can
relate to your plight in Kentucky.

When folks start speaking of alternative crops, they sometimes don't take
into account alternative market access. What I propose is an alternative
market approach for your current crops and an increased use of possible
alternative crops as well.

An arm of the war on drugs stretched itself into South America into
countries like Colombia and Bolivia. The U.S. government's incentive to
farmers to deter them from producing drug crops was to offer assistance to
those who grew alternative crops instead. Today, those alternative crops
are rotting in the field because of lack of access to a market for their crops.

The war on drugs has farmers of Bolivia in need of the same thing as
farmers here in the U.S.: market access.

A few decades ago, cities of America participated in a program that linked
them with sister cities of other countries. Since the war on drugs has
denied farmers from growing hemp as a viable market commodity, that would
have been my first suggestion as an alternative crop for Kentucky to
utilize in place of tobacco. Since the war on drugs has caused death
and poverty on foreign soil in Bolivia and hardship for its farmers, the
two have the same problem and seek the same solution.

The farmers of Bolivia are producing fruit mainly, the same type of
alternative crops that farmers in Kentucky are thinking of switching to. A
possible solution for the two farmers in different countries is to
establish trade with one another. Farmers and distributors will benefit in
both countries and show profits for their work and at the same time correct
two wrongs made by the war on drugs.

Steve Shamblen

San Antonio, Texas