It isn't just the Mail that was a bit outraged by this (although they did take a while to report it).



My favourite bit was



http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/04 ... austerity/

I've spent a week or so rewatching Yes Prime Minister on Netflix. Truly timeless.

Again you miss the point, because you are assuming a level of inefficiency that isn't there.

Food is not a discretionary item, and farmers are primary, not secondary or tertiary producers. It would be lovely if the same rules applied as do for those who make burger buns or bottle beer, but they don't. Customers make the choice in deciding to purchase from multiples - this isn't France, where customers will buy their vegetables at their local market, their meat at a local butcher and even their bread at a local bakery. And quite apart from that, using the natural resource that is grassland, there is an opportunity to produce export goods on a scale not seen in any other industry in this country - where the income is spent almost exclusively in this country and mostly locally. Farmers are not exporting their profits - such as they are, or their income abroad as most pharma and tech companies do. It's invariably reinvested into the business and the local economy, which produces a far more efficient use of money than other industries do.

And furthermore, in this glorious race to the rock-bottom price there is invariably someone - and invariably the guy on the bottom rung of production - getting screwed. If you want food that costs nothing to produce - whether it's a burger or ready meal, then there are other costs to be taken into consideration, the cost of quality, ethics and capitalism above fairness. We cannot on the one hand, argue for fair trade in Trinidad and on the other demand unfair, below cost production prices here. And I think the view of most people in agriculture - certainly that of IFA, is that responsible, safe and equitable food production is about bringing those in developing economies to the European model, rather than reducing European farmers to the South American model, for example.

The one decent thing we do in Europe is support agriculture and food security - there will be no better place to be on this planet if we have a food crisis, and there is a cost in creating that security. That's not to say there aren't better ways of managing CAP and subsidies, but it's unrealistic to think we can have it both ways.

Your argument is distressingly reductionist and simplistic. Is an artist - a writer, or painter or sculptor who is 'subsidised' by arts grants running an 'unsound' business? Is the cost of supporting essential cultural and agricultural services (for want of a better word) greater than the value of the product?

A completely free market in food production is 100% guaranteed to cause massive shortages and deprivation. Agricultural yields are not like factory output that can be dialled up and down at will. Food security is something that we would be mad not to resort to market interference for.

Somebody better tell NZ.

They'll find out for themselves in due course. 7% of their agricultural land is already foreign-owned.

NZ knows this already.They've introduced law to stop the structured purchase of lands by the Chinese. Sheep numbers have dropped drastically, because the only way to increase efficiency is to expand and it's not feasible with sheep. They're too labour intensive and quality of life is grim.

And from a food security point of view, Ireland and NZ have a lot in common - small population, huge exportation. But the NZ farmer has no loyalty and no responsibility for the food security of his neighbours in the way we do. Subsidising Irish farmers supports Europe.

There is also - and this is Mr P's input, ferocious intergenerational debt on NZ farms.

Not so. We are net recipients re CAP for a start and (edit) food inflation hasn't kept pace with inflation in other areas - like petrol (there's a free market to emulate?)Yet quality and traceability have increased. There is no traceability in NZ, they don't tag cattle there and the sheep die on the hills.

The subsidies for food security argument is bunk unless we are planning on going to war, are we?. The last major food shortages in Europe were caused by World War II when governments diverted men and resources onto the battlefield and in the aftermath there were no resources left to support the agricultural sector having destroyed their capital base. While in Ireland you had the two bachelor farmers, in Germany it was two sisters left to run the farm after their brothers had been killed on the eastern front.

The reason there is a surplus of food today is in part due to the efforts of Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green revolution.

Subsidising farmers to produce food that no-one wants is a waste of resources and is undermining the food security of other countries who cannot afford to subsidise their farmers.

South Africa puts tariff on Irish cheese exports - Tom Lyons -> http://www.independent.ie/business/iris ... 74775.html
February 18 2005



Food aid or hidden dumping? -> http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.or ... od_aid.pdf



The greatest threat to food security (besides the weather) is the availability of oil at the right price. Last year Libya was invaded and had it's assets and oil seized, there was no major outcry about this, why not? Yet we have a build up to war with Iran (and across Chaostan) and the threat of major disruption to global oil supplies which in turn will lead to shortages in food supplies if it comes to pass as the 'just in time' model breaks down quickly without transport and modern agricultural methods also break down. If people are really concerned about food security then why aren't they out protesting at the US embassy for an immediate peaceful resolution to this?

The reason New Zealand had to stop subsidising its farmers: The country was broke. How many people in New Zealand starved to death as a result?

Another thing to add. Experts: 30 to 50 percent of world's food thrown away -> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46743203/ns ... rown-away/



UK families waste £270 a year on discarded food -> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... arded-food

Why do we throw away vast amounts of food? -> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/g ... food-waste

The other argument, BR, is that commoditization of agricultural produce is more likely to lead to food shortages - we've seen elements of that in grain production highs and lows over recent years. In Europe I doubt we'll ever again see the guns and bombs kind of war again. Territorial and colonial battles are no longer fought on land, but on the floors of stockmarkets and departments of finance and the EU.

Sugar is an interesting example. We no longer grow it, we were told that the end of the Irish industry would support developing countries and we'd have cheaper sugar - but we don't. There is nothing of the free market idealism about OPEC. Or Nestle. And the alternative to inter-government intervention in food management, is increasing corporate intervention. That is not a good way to go. And dumping is not acceptable either.

Food waste is not universal, but you know that and you know that no one is protesting outside the
embassies, is because human nature leads most people to take a very short term view of life.

I'll have a look at those links later, thanks.

I'm not as optimistic.
Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia are all in Europe and that wasn't so long ago. Our view of future paths is very clouded by current and recent experience; WWI was 'the war to end all wars' right up until it wasn't.

My bottom line is that I'm prepared to sacrifice a lot of efficiency and free market idealism to ensure some measure of food security for a national population. I'd love to experience genuinely free markets populated by rugged individualists acting in enlightened self interest, but I live in an imperfect world that's full of externalities and rent seeking that I cannot control. Collectively, it's logical for us control the important ones we can and to do so in the interest of the greater good.

Land (and the food that grows on it) and labour should definitely be excluded from the freemarket beast. Culture too in my opinion. Subject these to the laws of the market and you annihilate their very essence. Human intervention and regulation is necessary. Commodify anything else, no problem. Western thought has an insurmountable difficulty in trying to 'measure' what is sacred. So, it disregards it. But this disregard breeds foul vapours.

I would add to Financial sector to that
Deregulation and financial innovation caused the greatest property bubble ever
The effecient market hypothesis and rational market nonsense is a cancer that needs to be killed

A failed food system in India - poor still go hungry

I think all the arguments, for and against are thrown into relief here. At its core it shows the importance not of food production management, but good food production management.