Agricultural subsidies

[Gorbachioo]

All my life ive thought that agricultural subsidies were the only thing we could do to keep our farmers working and as a result ive always considered those seeking for a ban on subsidies stupid hippies with no sense of reality. However today i learned that not only do we subsidise farming in Europe we also limit the importing of food.

This made me ask the question isnt limiting of importing of food enough to protect our agriculture? I see no reason why it wouldnt be and therefore the subsidies are pointless except for a couple of things: they lower the food prices in Europe and we get more income when we sell it to other countries.

However as most of you probably know the subsidies make it very hard for third world farmers to compete and therefore make third world countries highly dependant on us. And when they have no money to buy food from us the results are disasterous.

So do the pros really make up for the cons? I fail to see how.

Is there a good explanation for this or are the subsidies just pure evil?

(I really dont know as much as i should about this so if im wrong about something do correct it.)

 

[Gorbachioo]

Agricultural subsidy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


incase someone doesnt know what im talking about ;>

 

[Aoami]

what an interesting post

 

[Gorbachioo]

what an interesting post

Well thanks for contributing.


Thought this would make an interesting discussion. But doesnt seem like it.. ;>

 

[Bugz]

Our regulations on imports aren't to blame for third world countries going hungry. Firstly, a lot of them are subsistence farmers, so they will sell nothing to markets. Secondly, the problem spirals more into the realms of the pricing we place onto fertilizers and pesticides and how unwilling we are to negotiate these prices. Not to mention, the agricultural revolution which made some people in the third world VERY very rich and put everyone else in the dumps.

As for the idea of why do we subsidies and restrict imports? I couldn't give a definitive answer as I guess it's a P.O.V matter. One thing is for sure though, we DO want to encourage farmers to stay in the UK and farm the landscape. Firstly, it lowers the risk of more urban areas, which can lead to a whole host of other things -> global warming, pollution, more encouragement to bring more immigrants in etc. Secondly, it will help a lot now and in the future where biofuels become so accepted that every farmer who can make more from them will.

This is becoming a serious problem in the 3rd World, where a lot of farmers get paid more for biofuels and produce less crops. Hence the reason we've seen the prices on essentials like bread skyrocket recently. Where I live, some of our farmers are moving to biofuels too - bad news! Esp. for organic lovers!

Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if farmers are soon to be subsidized more for continuing to farm, given they farm what the govt. tells them.

Not to mention, some other European countries subsidize like a bitch (or they did - no idea if they still do). To keep farmers in good old UK, we needed to compete with this - else they will migrate.

However, you only have to look at the problem in America in terms of subsidies to realize what damage subsidized could do. A lot of high financial, high educational and highly industrial farmers are receiving subsidizes, even though they are generating large amounts of cash themselves. But as stated before, at least this does generally keep them in crop production!

Anywho - hope this is some food for thought. I've got to go to work now but I do enjoy discussions like that and yes, it is a very controversial and interesting topic so props for bringing it up!

 

[Gorbachioo]

As for the idea of why do we subsidies and restrict imports? I couldn't give a definitive answer as I guess it's a P.O.V matter. One thing is for sure though, we DO want to encourage farmers to stay in the UK and farm the landscape. Firstly, it lowers the risk of more urban areas, which can lead to a whole host of other things -> global warming, pollution, more encouragement to bring more immigrants in etc. Secondly, it will help a lot now and in the future where biofuels become so accepted that every farmer who can make more from them will.

I agree it is important to keep farmers working in Europe for a number of reasons but as i pointed out restricting importing should (as far as i can tell anyway) be enough to do that. Meaning that the subsidies are only there for financial gain but cause so much damage to poor countries.

Personally im not against subsidizing products like bio fuels and cotton, but food shouldnt be treated as a commodity. Its a human right. And just like water (theres a whole other discussion here) we dont have the right to control all of it. Atleast as long as we misuse that power we dont.


Now come on. Lets get this discussion going!

 

[Lamp]

Now come on. Lets get this discussion going!

LOL

 

[Ormorof]

common agricultural policy is indeed a thorny issue, i mean the EU hoards the surplus food (hence the mountains of butter and rivers of milk quotes you usually hear about ), pays people not to farm (so wily farmers buy up more land than they possibly, and profitably could farm then get paid not to use it ), of course the EU couldnt just ship it off to the third world to feed everyone since well, imagine what would happen if you dumped a massive supply of agricultural produce into an economy based on agriculture? especially if they gave it away for free

the UK isnt a net beneficiary of the policy anyway its mostly french and the spanish farmers who benefit whereas UK and germany end up paying the bill (think its something like 1/2 the EU budget goes to these farmers who make up about 5% of the EU's income, doesnt make sense to me but hey i cant vote in this country anyway so who cares what i think? )

 

[Vasconcelos]

More than 9.000M € of the Euro Agro Guidance and Guarantie Fund (EAGGF) went to the frenchies in the last EU funds program, followed by more than 6.000M for Spain, 5.000M € for Italy and 4.000M € for UK.

And I know from job experiences (not me directly) of ppl in Italy cheating with subsidies by faking olive trees (so from the air pictures it looks like they actually have more trees than in reality) and farmers in Spain overproducing flax in order to get more EU subsidies and then just burning the warehouses or letting it rot.

BUT:

EU funds are prolly the one of the reasons of the economic EU boom (as a whole and following the concept that "the wealth of my neighbour will benefit my own bussiness"), but god knows the amount of cheating all the countries have done with them
Anyways, the agro EU funds will be much more restricted in this next program (2007-2013), because UK refuses to decrease their "EU check" as long as France dont decrease their demands over the agro funds, so theyr entitled to come to an agreement if they want to fix the financial prospects for this period.
However, im of the opinion that no matter which country, its logical that one wants to keep an eye over a primary asset of an economy like its food, none wants to rely on imports to keep their nation well fed.

 

[Laddey]

LOL

lol ;D

I went to a public high school, i dont understand this stuff!

 

[Raven]

Why the hell shouldn't we limit imports? our farmers have a hard enough time as it is without being totally destroyed by imports.

Christ, I sometimes wonder how townies manage to dress themselves in the morning.

 

[Laddey]

Christ, I sometimes wonder how townies manage to dress themselves in the morning.

I'd rep you!....but that just isn't funny So harsh

 

[Bugz]

Why the hell shouldn't we limit imports? our farmers have a hard enough time as it is without being totally destroyed by imports.

Christ, I sometimes wonder how townies manage to dress themselves in the morning.

I think it's perfectly logical for people to question why we limit imports.

It's too late for me to think and write out a long passage but put simply, is it really that naive to look at the global situation rather than thinking about yours truly? Of course it isn't. In a way, the limitations on imports will cause more crops in the 3rd world to be devoted to biofuels. Even subsistence farmers are likely to switch over if there is more profit. We don't look giving out our hoardes of food and so more of the 3rd world die. Not to mention, demand and supply get royally fucked and we may end up with shortages of some foods (leading to hyperinflation), massive amounts of fuels (which isn't bad! ) and the world economy in ruins.

So it is not as one-sided as you think Raven - completely the opposite. No decision can ever be 100% right - economies do not work in that way.

 

[Raven]

We come back the food shortage, particularly grain, which is actually a contributing factor in the current global melt down. This is caused by foreign imports, less and less farmers grow wheat these days, rape seed is far more profitable, the oil extracted can be used in all sorts of things, including a biofuel.

 

[Gorbachioo]

Why the hell shouldn't we limit imports? our farmers have a hard enough time as it is without being totally destroyed by imports.

Christ, I sometimes wonder how townies manage to dress themselves in the morning.

Went on a cruise for a couple days so thats the reason for this late response.

I never said we shouldn't limit imports. I said thats the only thing we should do. Atleast to me that sounds like the best option but then as i said i dont know much about this. So how about reading what i say next time? Townie.. ;[


For the comedians: Dont understand the joke here.... someone explain it to me.

 

[Hawkwind]

Things are slightly better than they used to be. Having grown up in a farming community in Hants I can tell you most farmers think it's plain stupid. 10 years ago they were being paid more not to grow crops and to renew hedgerows across the South of England.

Suprised at the figures you quoted as I saw some recent data suggesting French farmers were the takers of 40% of the various EU farming handouts. The problem in France is that the farmers would not survive without them as their farms are too small scale in general.

In France farms were always split between sons if more than one and thus over the years they have become smaller and smaller. In some areas they form co-operatives and market their own produce to good effect but other regions just rely on subsidies and keep growing loss making crops etc.

Sarkozy recently pledged to reform French farming something Chirac could never do as that was his grass root support. It will be interesting to see if the very militant French farmers allow this to happen. It wasn't that long ago they were setting fire to lorry loads of sheep and cows exiting the 'Chunnel'.

This site gives better info on farm subsidies:

http://farmsubsidy.org/france

Sarkozy on Subsidies:

Nicolas Sarkozy pledges reform of European farming subsidies - Times Online


One big issue right now is the growing of subsidised crops for Fuel. Which has led to a shortfall of cereal for food. Nestle recently warned that cereal price rises were inevitable due to this shortfall.

Crazy that we are growing fuel crops when they know damn well it is not the solution the planet needs. There is not enough farm land on the planet to grow the crops needed to replace oil. Why even continue with it?