[bryanlarsen]

There are lots of other reasons why farmers in developed countries can grow food cheaper than those in developing countries:

- access to capital. A modern family farm has several million dollars worth of land and several million dollars worth of machinery. Farmers don't buy $500,000 combine harvesters for no reason -- in the long run they're cheaper than the alternatives.

- security. A modern farmer just leaves millions of dollars worth of machinery in his yard, usually unlocked.

- information. In developed chemicals the government & universities put out lots of information about techniques, seed varieties, chemicals, machinery, timing, weather forecasting, et cetera

[justin66]

The interesting thing is, agribusiness can take its technology to the developing world and do the same work there that it does here (with less security but also with fewer environmental and labor related restrictions and costs). Right now there are just very strong disincentives to do so in many cases.

I can't speak to the state of information and knowledge of agriculture in the various countries we'd consider "developing," and how it compares to universities and government here, but I bet it varies quite widely. That's a good point, though - it matters a lot.