IT ISN'T ALL ABOUT "ISMS"

Sometimes its about growing tomatoes...

Last week, the British administrators got word that farmers in the region were roiling with anger. They met with the farmers to see what the problem was and found that one issue was the lack of plastic sheeting to cover tomato plants.

The sheeting was not available in markets amid the postwar chaos but was urgently needed, the farmers explained, to protect the ripening crop before it perished. The British ordered $400,000 worth of the sheeting. They did not simply give it to the farmers but instead released it to shop owners, effectively flooding the market with plastic sheeting.

This brought prices way down so that farmers could afford it but also allowed the store owners to make a profit while providing what was needed.

"Why would we get involved with something like that? Because if the farmers are up in arms, then we could have a potential security problem," Synnott said.