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by Cthulhu_ 802 days ago
Why not locally sourced? I mean it's very possible flax isn't native to the Americas but it seems wasteful to source something from abroad.

And while 100+ years ago it made sense from a logistics point of view - use hard to find materials to fight counterfeiting - I don't believe that's a valid argument anymore.
2 comments
cloudbonsai 802 days ago
This thread is grossly missing the point. OP is writing about a foreign aid program directed at Nepali people.

Nepal is a rocky country, having a large patch of lands unsuitable for farming. People in the rulal area are literally one of the poorest population in the world.

Paper bush ("Mitsumata") grows well in such a rocky soil. This program is essentially an attempt to set up Japan as a longterm buyer of the material, so that the local people can make constant money.

> Why not locally sourced?

Because if Japan sourced the material locally, it just ceased to be a foreign assistance program.

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kragen 802 days ago
i don't know if it's intended as a foreign aid program, but if it is, it's a foreign aid program whose budget amounts to a single google engineer's salary, so i'd think japan could do better
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livueta 802 days ago
I mean, it's just one program out of many. Japan is the largest bilateral national contributor to foreign aid to Nepal: https://www.foreignassistance.gov/cd/nepal/current/obligatio... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_aid_to_Nepal

In 2019, 146.7M vs 129.0M from the U.S.

Lots of Japanese people travel to Nepal to volunteer in schools and clinics and stuff; when living in Japan I knew several different people who'd done that sort of thing. It's like U.S. doctors and contractors doing projects in Central America. Japan is very into building soft power in SEA through development assistance.

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Luc 802 days ago
It's a difficult low margin crop. Not easy to grow cheaply and it needs to be processed to extract the fibers.

It's been grown in that part of Europe for thousands of years and in the 19th century it was a major industry there. I don't think it's still a major crop in Belgium (too low margin) but the company in question is entrenched now.

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