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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:37
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$46.5 billion a year goes as a payoff to American farmers from the government. The congress should be ashamed of themselves for promoting this theft from the honest taxpayers. 
Here's FT's article...
quote:
Boost for Blair bid to cut EU farm cash
By Raphael Minder in Brussels, Frances Williams in Geneva and James Blitz in London
Published: June 21 2005 20:47 | Last updated: June 21 2005 20:47
Britain's campaign to cut European Union agricultural spending was boosted on Tuesday by a report showing subsidies to farmers in rich countries scarcely budged over the past decade.
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development findings will provide ammunition for Tony Blair, the British prime minister, who on Tuesday offered to give up the UK's €4.6bn rebate from the EU budget if farm subsidies were radically cut.
The report says subsidies made up 30 per cent of OECD farmers' incomes on average last year, the same as in 1995, when new rules negotiated in the Uruguay world trade talks came into effect.
Most subsidies are still linked to production, the most trade-distorting support. The EU led the OECD league table for producer subsidies last year with $133bn (€110bn), nearly half the total support of $280bn.
Japan was next with $49bn, with the US just behind at $46.5bn. While EU subsidies to farmers have declined modestly over the past decade, US support rose 18 per cent last year.
Reforms have failed to touch products such as rice and sugar, where subsidies account for up to three-quarters of market value. This is likely to raise fears by competitive agricultural exporters in the Doha round of trade talks that leading subsidisers are not prepared to open markets significantly to imports from the developing world.
The OECD report comes as Brussels launches an overhaul of the sugar subsidy system, which has helped inflate the EU sugar price to about three times the world market price.
Mariann Fischer Boel, agriculture commissioner, proposed a 39 per cent cut in the guaranteed EU price, a reform seen as a test of its willingness to stop dumping and open its market. It is likely to spark an internal confrontation with countries such as Italy and Ireland, whose inefficient sugar producers could be forced out of business.
Writing in today's Financial Times, Mrs Fischer Boel says the overhaul should help silence critics who argue that "the EU sugar regime has been the epitome of everything they feel is wrong with the CAP [common agricultural policy].
She adds: "In 2003 and 2004 the CAP underwent a quiet revolution which all but ushered out farm subsidies linked to production. It would be madness to try to shield the sugar sector from this cleansing wave of reform."
As Britain prepares to take over the EU presidency on July 1, Mr Blair is trying to avoid the impression of intransigence over the rebate, having been blamed by France and Germany for the collapse of last week's budget summit.
"The rebate is an anomaly that has to go," he said after meeting Goran Persson, Swedish prime minister. But it had to go in the context of other financing problems, such as farm subsidies. Mr Blair held an earlier position that the rebate was "fully justified and non-negotiable". |
Last edited by DanS on 22-06-2005 at 02:41
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BlackCat
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quote:
Originally posted by Atahualpa
Unfortunately a change to quality food requires a lot of knowledge, because biological food is not so easy to plant and it also requires way more maintenance. Knowledge needs time and money to propagate. Still it's a good thing to start with that now... we have great food surpluses, we should change cheap massproduction to higher quality and then cut the market to the outside... I really see no point in importing food we can produce for ourselves.
Imagine how much food we will produce once the EU-15 has modernized their agricultural sector.
And when we don't buy the cheap food from 3rd world countries anymore they will have to sell among themselves and reduce the starvation |
As far as I know all farmers on this planet are farming biological food. I guess that you mean ecological farming.
Third world countries doesn't starve because they export food, they do when they go to war or natural disasters happens.
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Colon
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Antwerp, Colon's Chocolate Canard Country
Jan 1970
time: 06:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Atahualpa
Pah... you sound like DanS..
How do you think farmers that, until now dependent on subsidies, can increase their expenses and lower their subsidies, eh?
But, of course, you don't care... 
Unfortunately a change to quality food requires a lot of knowledge, because biological food is not so easy to plant and it also requires way more maintenance. Knowledge needs time and money to propagate. Still it's a good thing to start with that now... we have great food surpluses, we should change cheap massproduction to higher quality and then cut the market to the outside... I really see no point in importing food we can produce for ourselves.
Imagine how much food we will produce once the EU-15 has modernized their agricultural sector.
And when we don't buy the cheap food from 3rd world countries anymore they will have to sell among themselves and reduce the starvation |
I'm not starting from the assumption farmers are toddlers who can't make up their own mind whether to engage in ecological farming or not.
And I don't see what's the point in producing a given amount of food by ourselves, if we can instead produce higher-added-value goods, export those goods in exchange for food from abroad whilst saving a buck, to be spend on other means. Check North-Korea if you'd like an example of what kind of folly striving after self-sufficiency can result in.
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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:37
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quote:
You know my dad is competing in this business |
Ag subsidies end up in my pocket, because I'm in the industry. It's still wrong.
quote:
What you should understand though is that every 3rd world country can produce cheaper food as we and naturally undercut our farmers earnings as they have to compete with them.. |
Just fine by me. What exempts them from the necessity of competing?
But realize that (1) there are ag niches other than organic farming; and (2) modern farming practices are very effective and efficient. Post World War II, in the US, corn (maize) yields per acre have increased by 800%. In the last 3 years alone, yields per acre have increased by about 25%. I'm not so sure these 3rd world countries would come out better in this competition for most crops.
Last edited by DanS on 22-06-2005 at 06:22
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Geronimo
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st cloud USA
Jan 1970
time: 05:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Atahualpa
Unfortunately a change to quality food requires a lot of knowledge, because biological food is not so easy to plant and it also requires way more maintenance. Knowledge needs time and money to propagate. Still it's a good thing to start with that now... we have great food surpluses, we should change cheap massproduction to higher quality and then cut the market to the outside... I really see no point in importing food we can produce for ourselves.
Imagine how much food we will produce once the EU-15 has modernized their agricultural sector.
And when we don't buy the cheap food from 3rd world countries anymore they will have to sell among themselves and reduce the starvation |
Could you define what you mean by "biological food"? YOu are apparently misunderstanding the meaning of 'biological' given that you have implied that genetically modified crops aren't "biological food" even though anything genetically modifed would be intrinsically biological.
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22-06-2005 02:35
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