APPENDIX 5
Memorandum submitted by Mrs Pippa Woods,
Vice Chairman, The Small and Family Farms Alliance (S 8)
I have sent you memoranda before on behalf of
the Family Farmers' Association.
I am now writing for the Alliance named above,
whose members have all agreed this statement.
It is our belief that further food trade liberalisation
will be disastrous for UK, and probably also for EU, agriculture.
This is for two main reasons:
1. Economic. Allowing the free importation
of temperate foodstuffs which can be produced much more cheaply
elsewhere will put severe economic pressure on the EU. Consumers'
money, which could and should be recycled within the EU, will
be exported, causing a potentially serious trade deficit, as well
as causing poverty in rural areas.
2. Welfare and Public Health. Consumers
should not be offered food the production methods of which are
so unsatisfactory as to be illegal in Britain. The sale of cruelly
or unhygienically produced food should be equally illegal, be
it of British or foreign origin.
ECONOMICS
We are well aware that to question the sanctity
of the concept of Free Trade amounts to heresy. However, we feel
that it is time orthodox economists and international businessmen
were challenged by ordinary people who put common sense before
unproven and unprovable economic theory.
Free trade has destroyed the coal, steel and
shipbuilding industries. Our Minister himself has said that he
is not prepared to see agriculture go the same way. He recognises,
as we all do, that agriculture is not just another industry. The
fact that most of the land of Britain is farmed, and how it is
farmed, has a profound effect on the quality of life of nearly
all the inhabitants.
The world has discovered how to produce food
intensively in the last few decades and surpluses have been building
up. As farmers know by bitter experience, it only takes a small
surplus to reduce the market price of any commodity. This reduction
in farm prices which followed increased world production has been
countered in many nations, and to a greater or lesser extent,
by tariffs and other regulations. These have been designed to
discourage the importation of food at below the local cost of
production. This was possible because food was outside the scope
of the GATT.
Unfortunately trade in food is now controlled
by the WTO. (The undemocratic nature and unaccountability of this
organisation is not something we are qualified to elaborate on,
but we suggest that it is a seriously relevant field for investigation.)
The WTO's intention to remove all, or most,
of the restraints on world trade in food commodities has apparently
been accepted by the Brtish government without question. We believe
there are many less powerful governments, and many worldwide NGOs
which do not share this acceptance. We hope that the committee
will be seeking views other than that of the British Establishment
on this point. (Via Campesina is the, or one of the, world leaders
in the campaign against WTO control of food.)
The reduction in farmgate prices caused by cheap
imports is now causing serious problems in the countryside. Increasing
amounts of public money are being given to farmers in an attempt
to prop up the rural economy. Total commodity support to UK agriculture
now amounts to 170 per cent of Total Income from Farming (MAFF,
August 1999). This is a manifestly ridiculous state of affairs,
especially in view of the fact that many formerly viable farms
are now operating at a loss.
If farming is allowed to continue on this downward
course, there will quite literally be chaos in the countryside.
All enterprises operating in rural areas depend to some extent
on reasonably prosperous farmers with whom to do business—all
will be poorer. In view of this, it will be difficult to find
employment for all the redundant farm workers and farmers, many
of whom are already depending on charity or state benefit for
survival.
Supporting an unemployed family costs nearly
£10,000 a year, whereas a farm worker of craftsman grade
pays over £3,000 a year in income tax and NHI. When food
production was profitable many medium sized farmers paid about
the same in income tax as they received in subsidies.
For wildlife there will be gains and losers
if land is abandoned, according to species. But if the whole countryside
assumes an unkempt and neglected air, many people's quality of
life will be diminished.
Taking support from all farmers and redirecting
it to the environment will only be a partial solution—it
will not compensate for total lack of profit in food production.
Modulation, in the form of reducing the very large payments to
very large farmers will, of itself, be useful. Reducing the buying
power of the largest enterprises will give smaller ones a better
chance to grow to a viable size. The money so saved could be used
for conservation, but care will be needed to modulate environmental
payments so that they do not encourage further agglomeration of
land by already large landowners.
Although it may not yet admit it, the government
is now faced with a stark choice: it must either find means to
bring food production back into profitabiity or it must pour funds
(whether or not matched by the EU) into other economic countryside
activities to take the place of farming. (While paying out large
sums in benefit meanwhile to keep families fed.) If there is no
profit in food production it will gradually diminish. It will
be difficult to find a substitute activity which can finance the
countryside on the scale which farming did formerly.
There are two other important considerations:
Food Security. A nation which abandons
the ability to produce the food it needs puts itself in a very
vulnerable position. At present much more food is produced in
the world than the world can afford to buy. Who knows how long
this situation may last? If a generation grew up not knowing how
to produce our own food, we would be in a very awkward position
indeed if/when food becomes scarce and expensive on the world
market.
Food Sovereignty. Many NGOs champion
the right of underveloped countries to keep out cheap food which
undermines their ability to develop their own agriculture. This
right of protection from an un-needed foreign food should apply
equally to all nations.
We believe that protection will have to be seriously
considered in order to make food production profitable once more
and save rural Britain from disaster. If there is no threat of
imports, home production can be regulated so as to match demand.
In general, and in the absence of surpluses, farmers can expect
rewards from consumers sufficient to keep them in business (and
look after the countryside). This does, of course, assume fair
play on the part of processor and retailer, who may need to be
regulated.
WELFARE AND
PUBLIC HEALTH
If sub-standard food is imported in large quantities
this could damage the nation's health, as well as ruining a large
proportion of farmers. Our hygiene laws are extremely strict,
not only in abattoirs but also in milk production and many other
matters, such as the use of pesticides. Either these hygiene laws,
which add to farmers' costs, are necessary and important, or they
do not matter and could be ended. If they are truly essential
it behoves our government to make sure that all imported food
is subject to the same laws. If they are not important, our farmers
should not have to bear the expense of complying with them. BST,
hormones and antibiotics are routinely used in many countries
to lower costs. The import of products containing them is banned,
but monitoring is extremely difficult and leads to endless disputes.
GMOs will cause similar problems—the wrangling has begun.
The same applies to welfare. Many aspects of
welfare are now matters of law. Battery cages must be a certain
size, calves may not be kept in crates or sows in stalls or tethered,
cows tails may not be cut off. The latter practice is fairly common
in New Zealand for ease of handling large numbers of cows in each
herd and is said to have reached Ireland. It is common knowledge
that many of our laws on the treatment of animals are in advance
of those in the rest of the EU. Do we seriously suppose that animal
production in Africa, South America or the Far East is subject
to equivalent laws to ours? It is also alleged that pesticides
long banned here are still in use in less developed countries.
The British public must not be able, unwittingly
or otherwise, to obtain foodstuffs produced in ways that are illegal
here. There must be power to exclude them. Labelling will not
be sufficient. If apparently equivalent, but cheaper, items are
displayed alongside our highly regulated food, poorer and less
discerning people are bound to buy them. The cheapest available
product will always be used in manufacturing made up food and
it would obviously be impractical to declare the country of origin
for every one of a long list of ingredients.
By far the simplest solution to a multitude
of problems will be to take food out of WTO jurisdiction entirely.
Every country would then have equal right to restrict entry of
any food it wished. Countries would have to regulate their own
food production to that which they needed for home consumption,
plus any commodity for which there was a genuine world need. There
would have to be a law against any export subsidies of any kind.
Such an international agreement would do nothing
but good to Britain and the whole of Europe. We would regain control
of our own food and food production. Total EU exports of food
are not great and to reduce our production to the level of true
need would not be difficult. Low input/low output farming could
become the norm, which would be much better for the environment
than the present pursuit of ever higher yields from both crops
and livestock.
The Cairns group and North America would be
most affected. But they also could relax their quest for ever
greater output and practice more conservation. They might be in
the best position to provide food to countries unable to grow
enough of their own. Food miles/global warming would be reduced.
Tropical countries would concentrate on tropical foods, which
all temperate areas need to import. If they ceased trying also
to produce temperate foods for the world market, this might help
indigenous peoples to maintain their own sustainable farming methods.
We now have the opportunity to get food out
of the clutches of the WTO; to free food from being a source of
constant wrangling between nations. All nations must accept that
all other nations have the choice to admit foreign food freely,
or to tax or regulate it as they wish. No doubt all the world
traders will scream, mistakes will be made and anomalies created.
But things will settle down and any country which is capable of
it will be free to feed itself in a sustainable way, caring for
its countryside in the process. Farming will continue as a successful
occupation worldwide and there will be no bullying, at least in
agriculture, by any pseudo international power.
27 October 1999
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