French Agricultural Tilt

Agriculture is the traditional occupation for the traditional countries. With the non stopping preaching of the western world there is less attention paid by the Third world to its backbone economy. On the other hand, the advanced countries protect their farmers with heavy subsidy.

The Hindu editorial (9 May 2009) says,

The French government has sent shock waves through international agriculture with its announcement that from next year it will divert 20 per cent of EU agricultural subsidies to smaller farms, grazing land, hill farming, and organic agriculture; the former European Economic Community introduced subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 1963. Agriculture in the developed world is as much of a political battleground as it is in the developing world. For decades, French governments have claimed to be protecting small farmers and traditional ways of life against industrial farming, EU bureaucrats, and the threat of hormone-reared American beef. In fact the major French beneficiaries of CAP have been larger cereal farmers, many of whose holdings are as big as those on the American prairie. In 2002, President Bush signed a bill to subsidise U.S. agribusiness to the tune of $190 billion over ten years; in 2008, Congress overrode Mr. Bush’s veto of a bill, taking the total closer to $300 billion. In the United Kingdom, despite public rhetoric against CAP, the larger farmers benefited hugely from being paid not to grow mountains of surplus grain and were turning their land into lucrative golf courses and other leisure facilities while small farmers struggled so hard that some committed suicide. In Germany, the larger farmers are very hostile to the EU’s new requirement that subsidies to specific farms be published.

The French policy shift and the EU’s move towards transparency are welcome, despite larger French farmers’ complaints that transparency will cause envy and distrust among themselves. It must, however, be remembered that there is little serious talk yet of an end to agricultural subsidies in advanced economies or of fairer trade terms for developing countries’ agricultural produce. Jamaican dairy farmers and Mozambican sugar producers cannot compete with subsidised milk powder and sugar from developed countries. The suffering caused to Indian cotton farmers by subsidised U.S. cotton exports has also been widely reported. In addition, smaller French farmers feel that the changes do not go far enough. Those facts are, at present, unsurprising, but even on grounds of self-interest there may be good reasons for developed countries to address these issues seriously. Unable to grow food crops in the face of subsidised U.S. exports, Colombian and other Latin American farmers say they have no option but to grow cocaine — for export to the colossal U.S. market.

It is high time for the western world to eliminate their hypocritical approach towards agriculture