The contract stipulated that the wheat would contain something like <1% sand. US wheat at the time had effectively no sand at all, so they mixed in 1% of pure sand, staying just within the contract terms.
(I heard this from a friend whose friend knew something about it; in searching I can’t find a source online, so the story might be apocryphal. I also might be off on the precise percentage.)
Except -
"Recombine or add broken corn and broken kernels to whole grain of the same kind, provided, that no dockage or foreign material, including dust, has been added to the broken corn or broken kernels;"
I think you'll find neither story is true.
Like most Urban Legends it's a bit silly, people are people whatever the culture. They have common sense.
This is to prevent over-reliance on the measured SLO rather than the stated SLO in upstream services.
Why ride the line? It'd take one major issue then you're way over you error budget?
For testing/simulations I can see why you'd introduce the errors.
http://danluu.com/google-sre-book/#chapter-4-service-level-o...
I'd say that feeding humans or even livestock is more important than profits. Or at least, it ought to be.
"Trafigura, Vitol and BP exporting dirty diesel to Africa, says Swiss NGO
"Traders blend cheap fuel with sulphur levels many times the European limit for sale in African countries, says Public Eye"
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/15/trafigura-vito...
Where I am, a ton of sand aggregate using in construction is ~$100 per ton. The better sand used in gardens, the brown sand (it's used to repel water so you don't over-water crops) is more than than.
Considering the wheat/ton spot price is $160 per ton at the moment, I don't think the actual prices would be too different.
[0] http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=wheat&month...
Also, diplomatically, this might be more difficult to defend. Although allowing this would've been in the best interest of both nations. Cue the human condition :)
