22 February 2011

Pepsi and IDB

PepsiCo and Inter-American Development Bank Sign Agreement to Spur Development in Latin America and Caribbean

Here's what I wrote to a colleague about this rather lopsided and misguided venture:

Pepsi invests $2.6 million and the farmers take out $40.4 million in microloans. And they (Pepsi) get sunflower oil much cheaper than their current sources -- currently US and Canada i'm guessing. Geez, who wins there? So the farmers can produce oil for the junk food that makes Mexico second only to the US globallly in the number of obese inhabitants.

But I'm guessing that climate change in Mexico means they won't produce sunflowers there for that long. Too bad for the farmers that put all that effort into converting from food to oil production.

Sigh.