Well, first of all, I think your voice is really pleasant to listen to. It's so relaxed and soothing, that I remain calm even with topics that would otherwise get me upset. So please, do continue with your rasta-rants, as well as more positive topics, which I would also love to hear.

The issue with people's fear (in my opinion the root of most of the problems you mentioned) and the unpicked fruit, reminds me of organizing a fruit-saving group in Germany and Hungary. What a difference! In Germany most people with unpicked fruit trees in their yards were simply thrilled that someone came and took the fruit they couldnt pick themselves, since in most cases they were elderly. In Hungary, the same demographics in the same situation tended to eye us suspiciously, trying to figure out our scam. In the end they would decide they weren't interested, because they would need to let us enter their property. (Oh no!) Or, they would charge us by the kilo, above market prices, ignoring our time and work.

In my interpretation, these people have experienced so much rip-off and abuse throughout their lives (and those of people around them), that their defense mechanism was to adopt this fearful attitude. Of course, I'm sure that's only part of the reason, and there are lots of learned factors as well.

As for poverty, I like to think that it's not so much about the amount of possessions one has, but their attitude towards the world around them. This way you can have people and communities with very little resources be extremely rich, and others with a lot of accumulated wealth be utterly poor.