Memorandum submitted by Reverend Robert
Barlow (RAS 16)
1. You ask for views on what CAP should
look like in 10 to 15 year's time. Having been a village vicar
for 12 years, I am now an agricultural chaplain, working closely
with farmers and farming organizations.
2. My hope for the future of the CAP &
European policy is that it will produce an agricultural industry
that is not dependent on subsidy, but for which there is a level
playing field worldwide and where the world's farmers get a fair
return for their labour.
3. I would like to see an industry where:
(a) If stalls and tethers are banned in pig
production in the UK, then pigmeat produced overseas using stalls
& tethers is banned from our shops.
(b) If minimum wage rates apply for producing
food in the UK, then food from overseas should also pay the same
minimums.
(c) If Foot & Mouth is eradicated in
the UK at horrendous cost to the UK industry and government, that
overseas beef from countries with endemic Foot & Mouth should
be banned.
(d) Air freighted beans from Africa should
meet the cost of the CO2 pumped into the atmosphere.
(e) There is a level playing field between
producers and purchasers and where the buying power is not in
the hands of increasingly fewer retailers.
(f) Supply chains are shortened and we can
ensure safe and wholesome food through good relationships in a
short chain, rather than endless paperwork in an increasingly
long chain.
(g) The world's agricultural industry meets
the world's food needs. Farmers in the developed world are scratching
to make a living. Farmers in the less developed world are also
scratching to make a living. Yet 800 million people don't have
an adequate diet! That is an affront to God's sense of justice
(a view of God being concerned with justice is common to all the
major faiths) and a sad indictment of the world's political and
economic system.
June 2006
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