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Removing CAP
Read more about: Agriculture and Rural
The economics of removing CAP do make sense. The free market is the fairest way for world trade to work. Countries in Africa, Asia and South America can often produce food at a cheaper price then we here in Europe can. Thus consumers would choose their products and we all save money. Then this money can be spent on more products making more jobs (to compensate for the jobs lost in agriculture) etc. Even though some fresh products such as milk would probably go up in price (ever notice that water is dearer then milk) the overall effect for the consumer and economy would be positive. Also the money saved by the EU could be pumped into public transport and infrastructure to cater for the increase in urban population.
€9.4 billion worth of agricultural trade comes some of the world’s poorest countries with preferential access to EU markets these countries would be also be hit by the removal of barriers. Farming has low profit margins. So to make a profit without CAP would involve consolidations of farmers and GM corps (organic crops in Ireland ain’t going to happen without subsidies or high prices.).
The vastly more efficient agribusiness sector in America with the economies of scale that farms there works at, These corporation run farms may still be able to undercut the third world countries farmers. In Europe farming is still a family business as CAP makes it economical for family farming to exist. Also for instance in Ireland large corporations do not control the market. Most of the farming companies are Co-ops owned by the farmers or in the case of corporations like Kerry Group their main shareholders are the farmers they source their produce from and so act in there interest.
The removal of the barriers will force many farmers to sell up and leave agriculture resulting in consolidation and European farming reverting to the American model of consolidation(in 1999 80% of beef production in America was controlled by 3 companies), high value, low margin and low quality. This may result in even more cheap food under cutting third world countries farmers. What will happen would probably be consolidation of world agriculture. To compete with the consolidated western farms developing farmers must also consolidate into corporation farms run probably by western companies. It is wrong to presume it is a win win situation for the third world. The winner will probably be big business and consumers.
wulfbeorn said “All those people who marched with the IFA through Mallow over the weekend were not marching for the freedom to grow beet or protection of their individual rights as beet farmers. That is not what it was about. It was about their right to live off the rest of the population in the EU, off the taxes taken from everyone else by force.” While I think the word force is wrong and the difficulty and sacrifices made to run a farm are more then most jobs so it is not quiet “living off”. But I agree with his basic point that while they were marching for their survival that survival depends largely on living off the state. However where the whole anti-CAP thing is not beneficial is rural life, security, health and ecological.
Make no bones about it the abolition of CAP would kill off rural life. Fact. Don’t talk to me about reskilling upskilling rejuvenation etc etc. The simple matter of the fact is that rural life would die. No companies are going to open up technological plants in Ballygobackwards simple. So people will be force to move to cities to look for work. And leave the countryside devoid of people. Much land will simply be abandoned. Family Farming in Europe can not out price Family farming in Latin America and Africa. The small farmer will be gone.
Hedgerows in Ireland are vital to animal and plant life in this country. When farms are consolidated these hedgerows will be destroyed causing an ecological disaster
Food produced intensively as large scale farming demands tends to be produce in feed lots and broilers(battery hens gaffs).These animals have higher saturated fat, less vitamins and less of the stuff Flora advertisements, Team Actimal and organic food enthusiasts go on about, compared to animals that are grass fed. This will increase the obesity epidemic in the west as the poor will not be able pay higher prices for organic or normally produced food.
The president of America George W Bush once said that water is essential to our survival. So he can say that I feel I can say something equally blatantly obvious. Food is essential to our survival. After World War II 40% of food in Europe came from America CAP was brought in to make Europe self sufficient.
So imagine this future. We rely on Latin America for the majority of our food here in the EU. And this is great we live in utopian Eddie Hobbs world of low prices for all. We all have money and everything is great. Then Argentina declares war on Brazil. This destabilise the entire region borders are closed armies mobilised and all Latin American countries go on a war footing. So suddenly there are no more Argentinean steaks landing in ports. What happens then when Europe suffers a lack of food? Economic crash? public unrests? Me saying told you so? (joke I never throw it back in peoples faces honest) Famine ? War? Who knows but we may regret destroying European agriculture then. The Dutch Agriculture minister Cees Veerman said “We have to ensure 1.2 billion meals every 24 hours in Europe We don’t want to be dependent on other regions of the world for food the way we are for oil.”
Maybe we could use the money saved to build an army to take over countries for their food. There is more then economics and farmers rights to CAP. What measures are taken to dissolve CAP need to be carefully done. To act rashly would be foolish.
I blame Dev. But then again, I always do.
The problem is that since the foundation of the state, and indeed before it, the Irish were lead to believe that our future would be, as it always was, farming. Dev and co. wanted as much and their plans reflected this.
Then one fine day, we made a very good move and joined the EU, got rich and lived in bliss forever more - or so the story goes. When we joined the EU, we pretty much gave up on farming and fishing. Any chance that the F-men ever had of living off our natural resources died the moment we entered the union. So let’s remember that while all Ireland has benefited from joining the E.U. some were forced to give up more than others. Ireland promised potential farmers one thing, then it stabbed them in the back after they had made a lifetime commitment. It was for the greater good of course, but it was still a broken promise.
Ideally, Ireland would be best served if CAP could remain until the so-called gateways could be properly developed and our infrastructure could be properly developed.
The vastly more efficient agribusiness sector in America with the economies of scale that farms there works at…
Simon, you’re not seriously implying that the US has a free market in the agricultural sector are you?
They’ve spent just as much time in the WTO over their subsidies as the EU has.
Oh, and the problem with agriculture is that production is difficult because the nature of the industry means that there is little likelihood that you’ll get price equilibrium. It’s very very hard for farming businesses to invest and make strategic decisions when they can’t forecast year-on-year price changes. Hence the CAP which was intended, in part, as a price stabilisation regime.
I don’t disagree with you that it ended up with far too many unintended political and economic consequences and needed serious reform, not least to prevent dumping in developing countries. But the fact that a subsidy regime hasn’t worked does not imply that an entirely ‘free’ market will produce the sorts of efficiencies you envisage either. And what’s completely certain is that a nod to the subsidy-driven USA doesn’t in any way prove your point.
Simon, you’re not seriously implying that the US has a free market in the agricultural sector are you?
God no. Just that US style (big farms) agriculture would come from free market.
Sorry - I misinterpreted you. As for big agriculture coming from the free market, I agree it’s the most likely path from the position we’re in now (where subsidies have essentially underwritten big agri-businesses for decades).
Still, I don’t think we’d entirely see eye-to-eye as to whether that would necessarily be A Good Thing for consumers, the environment etc…
This is a tough one. CAP obviously isn’t doing what it was designed to do, and to all intents and purposes is just a method for underwriting inefficient farming methods across the EU.
The big change that has taken place in the last couple of generations is how we buy our food. As each generation moves further and further away from the land, we lose our sense of how food is produced. I’d reckon that we are at the point now where some kids no longer associate eggs with hens or milk with cows. To them, these products are made in egg or milk factories. We have also lost the notion of what seasonal food is all about. The reason for this is because we now buy our food mostly from supermarkets. I was in Tesco last Saturday and saw apples from China. Most people wouldn’t bother looking at the origin of the food, and would happily buy strawberries in December if they looked nice, even if they were imported from Australia.
We need to keep our sources of food as close to the plate as possible for several reasons reasons and here are two. First of all, there are the environmental concerns involved in shipping vast quantities of food around the globe. Secondly, shipping food long distances inevitably involves some form of processing, so that the food has the appearance of freshness when it arrives at its destination. In the case of fruit and vegetables, these items start to deteriorate once they are separated from the host plant or pulled from the ground. The processing may keep the foodstuffs looking nice, but in reality they will have lost much of their nutritional value.
Which brings me to my final point, after which I will shut up. Another problem we have is our attitude to food overall. What is it for? Is it there just to fill our bellies and sate our hunger? I believe that this is the attitude many people have, thus the amount of junk that people eat. People are time-poor these days and go for convenience over nutritional value. After a long day at work, it’s a lot easier to take a pizza out of the freezer and pop it into the oven, than it is to make a meal from raw ingredients. And boy, do the big food corporations and supermarkets know this.
If Africa was supposed to be a country capable of massive agricultural exports, then why is 50% of the population of Africa in various states of undernoourishment ??? If you allow Africa to export whatever food is in Africa to Europe, then more people in Africa will starve. Africa needs greater equality for women (so that they can make the men responsible for thei families), and more urban employment. But this is not feasible, because the primary requirement of rich urban societies is to use Africa as one giant mining/energy resource complex, with the ore sent out of Africa. In return kleptocratic regimes in Africa get guns, jets, and bank accounts in Zurich, London, and Bermuda.
And ‘the solution’ that our idealists offer is to take whatever food is being produced out of Africa, in an effort to control inflation in highly indebted Western societies.
You People are missing the big Picture. The Mineral wealth that leaves Africa everyday will never return. Africa sends out real wealth for paper dollars that are losing 2-4% of their face value every year.
Reform of the CAP is a complete Red Herring - it is the dismantling of Western rural societies for the benefit for an elite minority in Zurich, London, etc…