Falling mineral prices have Bolivian miners digging in the hard Andean earth for a humbler means of survival: potatoes.
The global financial crisis is driving a decline in metal prices that has idled thousands of miners here in recent weeks _ just in time for the Southern Hemisphere's spring planting season in nearby rural villages once all but abandoned during a recent mineral boom.
"They can no longer earn anything in the mines, but at least they can plant their crops so they have something to eat," Roman Rodriguez, spokesman for the Potosi state Federation of Mining Cooperatives, told The Associated Press recently.
The price of zinc, …
No comments:
Post a Comment