MeTurk

Are we bastards for giving our farmers such big subsideys? Ireland and france are unwilling to give up the large subsideys we pay to our farmers, and countrys in Southern America and Africa are saying we're putting them out of business.

They way I see it though it's our government job to look out for it's citizens, Irish farmers are getting screwed when they try to sell their product and couldn't afford to grow the product without the subsideys. Should we just abandon our farming industry and import our food?

I'm all for buying local food and their does seem to be a bit of a movement towards Irish farmers cutting out the middle man and selling to local stores, which is much better in my opinion.

The thing is the world has more than enough food, 50% of it rots. It's really all our own fault for demanding cheeper food.

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LiveFreeorDie

It is quite an interesting debate.

On the one hand, I think countries need to protect certain industries that are important to their independence from other foreign countries. To me, industries such as farming, steel production, public transportation, oil/nat gas etc. should all be subsidized if necessary to keep them going because they are important for keeping a nation independent. The idea of of the U.S. or Europe shutting down their farming industry and relying solely on Africa or South America is crazy. Any time a new despot comes to power in a key farming country in Africa or SA, he would have the countries that are relying on that food by the balls....similar to how most of the world relies on the middle east for oil. Would you want to see food prices rising and falling based on whatever coup of the month is flaring up in Africa? I wouldn't.

On the other hand, Africa in particular is in desperate straights and the exportation of food could help them pull themselves out of poverty. However, import tariffs in Europe in particular, but also other countries, do not allow the lowest cost producers of food take advantage of the global market. How will Africa's situation ever improve if they cannot take advantage of their own natural resources to begin earning money???

Additionally, many countries produce too much food and it all rots...while people starve half a world away. That is a terrible, terrible tragedy.

What are the solutions? We all know European and U.S. farmers could not compete in a free market with African farmers.....similar to how the U.S. and Europe cannot easily compete with Chinese manufacturing. I do not really have an answer. It is a really tough issue....but at the end of the day, the worst thing for me is to know how many kids starve everyday while grain rots in warehouses all over the U.S. and Europe.

*Edited to add the following editorial which I happened to read after I left my original post:

Free Trade Frontier
By DOUGLAS A. IRWIN
November 28, 2005; Page A16
Next month, ministers representing the membership of the World Trade Organization will meet in Hong Kong. They will attempt to make progress on the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, which aim to reduce trade barriers and trade-distorting agricultural subsidies. Unfortunately, negotiators appear to be drastically scaling back what they had hoped to accomplish rather than risk a complete failure.
Progress at Hong Kong is critical to bringing the Doha Round to a conclusion in 2006. The World Bank estimates that global gains from a successful Doha liberalization at $290 billion. An agreement must be reached by the end of next year so that it can be passed by Congress before the president's trade negotiating authority expires in mid-2007: Failure would probably push any eventual agreement many years into the future. That means the world would postpone cashing in the benefits and delay the opening of markets that advantage not just the U.S., but more importantly those in the developing world whose economic prospects are diminished because of impediments to world trade.
After the previous Uruguay Round concluded in 1993, developing countries felt cheated. They took on costly obligations to protect intellectual property and impose sanitary standards on trade, while developed countries failed to significantly improve market access for labor-intensive manufactured goods or agricultural products, where they practiced "dirty tariffication" in converting existing quantitative barriers into even higher import tariffs. As a result, Doha was devoted to ensuring that benefits of trade liberalization reached those in the poorest countries.
President Bush recognizes the importance of success in the Doha negotiations. In an underreported speech delivered at the U.N. in September, he stated: "We need to give the citizens of the poorest nations the same ability to access the world economy that the people of wealthy nations have, so they can offer their goods and talents on the world market alongside everyone else . . . [T]he greatest obstacles to achieving these goals are the tariffs and subsidies and barriers that isolate people of developing nations from the great opportunities of the 21st century."
The U.S. has made reasonable efforts to push the Doha negotiations forward, promising to slash agricultural subsidies and end all export subsides. If these efforts contribute to the successful conclusion of Doha, that would more than redeem the blemishes on the administration's trade record, which range from the egregious farm subsidy bill and the special tariffs imposed on imported steel to the pressuring of China into limiting exports of textiles and clothing goods. (Coming less than a year after the phase-out of the hideous, quota-wracked Multi-Fiber Arrangement in January, this is another step backwards.)
The Doha Round may be the president's last opportunity to make freer trade a reality. Unfortunately, the negotiations are in serious jeopardy for two reasons largely beyond the administration's control. First, the European Union is failing to offer serious reforms in terms of market access for agriculture goods. Europe's Common Agricultural Policy has set domestic prices so high that it has had the long-run effect of turning the region from a net importer of commodities such as wheat and sugar into a net exporter. The U.S. and developing countries rightly scoff at the "concessions" offered by the EU on agricultural trade. Just a few exemptions from an overall plan of tariff and subsidy reduction -- and the EU proposes many -- can wipe out most of the gains from liberalization.
Second, many developing countries have assumed that the Doha Round would see developed countries grant them market access without reciprocal actions on their part. Some developing countries have used the development round as an excuse to do nothing and posture, demanding preferential access or "special and differential treatment" without recognizing that they are engaged in trade negotiations. This entitlement mentality has bred intransigence, which obscures that fact that their own substantial trade barriers pose an obstacle to their development, regardless of market access conditions abroad. Developing countries should recognize that almost all of the important benefits they would receive by way of Doha result from a reduction of their own trade barriers. Trade negotiations are a two-way street: Developing countries can only induce the U.S. and EU to open markets to agricultural goods and labor-intensive manufactures if they also offer to reduce their own import barriers.
The EU's stubbornness on agriculture and the developing countries' intransigence on market-opening reflect both a fear of trade liberalization and the power of special interests. But these obstacles also reflect the difficulties of achieving trade liberalization through the WTO. Although multilateral negotiations offer the largest scope for and greatest gains from opening trade, the process is sometimes "slowest common denominator" liberalization. As the former WTO Director General Mike Moore put it, the WTO is like a car with one accelerator and 148 handbrakes.
* * *
One can only hope that Hong Kong will not be another chapter in the ongoing tragedy of delayed reforms. There is little the U.S. can do except to remind participants that the window is closing on the best opportunity to start eliminating costly trade barriers on a global scale. The administration should go the extra distance in its commitment to reduce our own trade barriers -- especially in politically sensitive sectors that are of particular interest to developing countries. Eliminating cotton subsidies (for Africa), abolishing quotas on sugar (for the Caribbean), and reducing tariffs on orange juice (for Brazil) and textiles (for South Asia) would give developing countries a direct stake in making concessions that would make a trade deal possible. The cost of failure is high, not just for American taxpayers and consumers who foot the bill for these policies, but more importantly for the poor around the world whose livelihoods would be improved by greater access to world markets.

__________________
\\Jamie\\



"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin

"The plural of anecdote is not data"

Joker

One of the advantages to farm subsidies in the States was it prevented families from literally "losing" the farm to droughts, banks, poor growing seasons, etc etc.

One of the major reasons why this country hands them out so freely even more now is to prevent John Q. Farmer from selling off his family's land to a developer by making his farming actually a viable way to make a living (if it were up to me and I was offered millions to sell the farm, I'd be writing this from somewhere tropical.).

As for EU subsidies: Not being as familiar with them as I should be, I will ask a few questions:

1. Exactly what is being subsidized? Certain products or farming in general?

2. What are the subsidies aimed at achieving? Parity with the US? Because frankly that is an impossible feat- there just isn't enough viable farm land in all of the EU to compete economically with the American farms. (no jab, look at the legitimate reasons)

LFOD hits it right on the head: Even with emerging countries developing their agricultural industries, handing all the food production to a certain region or country is a shaky and dangerous proposition.

Africa in particular has shown decades of inability regardless of who's in control, to be able to feed themselves. Until otherwise proven wrong, I wouldn't consider them a viable alternative or competitor to EU farming.

Of course, I could be way off here, but thats just me...

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expatben

I am all for helping the third world but I think that governments should protect their farmers too. For one thing, we need to but less things and abandon free trade.
If African nations did that too it may help. We can help other nations but we all must help ourselves.
XPat

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[color=blue][i][font=Verdana][color=black]"I'm just another stranger lookin' for the promised land"

Joker

You get into the whole socio-economic advancement of countries and that becomes dangerous ground. For instance:

China has an abundance of cheap labor available to manufacture anything from pencil erasers to automobiles. This cheap labor is so readily available that domestic manufactures in the States can easily have it made halfway around the world and shipped here for far less than what American companies can do. At what point do you abandon the free trade ideal and impose tarriffs or monetary damages upon companies that do this? Can you ethically make this determination (forget about Chinese human rights violations- look solely at the dollars and cents)

Thus the reason for subsidies. Without directly taxing or imposing tarriffs upon the goods thus creating a trade deficit and affecting diplomatic relations adversely, the subsidy allows for the domestic company to maintain its operation, keeping tax-paying and voting citizens employed.

The farm subsidy oversteps that a bit, too. See, in the states much of what is harvested is often destroyed because it maintains artificial price points so as to not affect the bottom line of the farmer and keep them in business. Farmers in some instances are paid to leave fields fallow for the same reason. Supply goes up, demand remains the same, prices and profits go down. Simple Keynesian applied economics.

Once more, I back up my prior stance. The EU does not have the physical ability to produce enough through farming to even compete with US and Canadian products. So the subsidies maintain a level of income for farmers that otherwise would have literally sold out and gotten office jobs years ago.

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Misadventures of a Crazed Kitchen Pirate

"Steve is the prototypical cool American male. Y'know, I'm talking about Steve McGarrett, alright? Steve Austin, Steve McQueen. Y'know, he's the guy on his horse, the guy alone. He has his own code of honor, his own code of ethics, his own rules of living, man. He never, ever tries to impress the women but he always gets the girl."

zero

Here's the thing about farming subsidies, at least here in the states anyhow... Our government(the U.S.A) gives private farmers huge subsidies and backs their loans just so they don't go out of business. However eventually they will stop. The fact of the matter is that farming works out better and is more efficient on a large corporate scale. Here in the states someday all of our farms will be owned and opperated by large corportions or corporations disguised as Co-Ops. I don't know how well the private farming business fairs in GB but here it is slowly dying and the public is paying for it. But when it comes down to it I am willing to pay because as a people we have become obsessed with getting as much for as little as possible and we let this happen. So if it is going to cost me a little more at tax time to keep a farm that has been owned and operated by the same family for 200 years alive, then so be it I guess.


and the battle rages on!

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expatben

Joker, you ask a good question-at what point do we abandon free trade?I have an opinion but first off this is a bit rantish and I want to apologise for all those who I offend...
I think we should abandon it when it costs our citizens jobs. I was a child of the 90s and can remember Canada joining the NAFTA-I also remember factories, jobs and money leaving-Canada joined in 1992 and my family left a year after.
We wouldn't need as many subsidies if we impossed tarrifs, imported less and depended more on ourselves and our citizens.
13 years later and look where we are-the American government is ignoring NAFTA pannel rulings on Canadian softwood lumber factories in industrial Canada and America are moving to Mexico and forcing Mexican companies out of busines leaving Mexican workers open to further exploitation. Western governments condem government corruption of some third world countries and wish to see an end of sweat shops...then trade with those countries and allow their corperations to buy from sweatshops.
I am not saying stuff the third world. I want to help fight the poverty but our nations are funding both sides of the war on poverty and we will never win it that way.
Anyways, again I apologise for offending anyone
XPat

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I have been to: Canada, USA, Iceland, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Poland, Germany, Sardinia, Switzerland, China, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Morocco.

Do to list: [color=blue][color=black] Australia, New Zealand, Austria India and Bolivia.

[color=blue][i][font=Verdana][color=black]"I'm just another stranger lookin' for the promised land"

Joker

I'm with you. However, the farm subsidies go to the ADM's out there as well. I have no problem with a family owning their ancestral farm either even if my tax dollars are thrown at that. Frankly, I far less of a problem with a hard-working family farmer getting the subsidy than a woman that keeps cranking kids out to get a check each month. (This is not an exaggeration. I have very good friends that work in the city hospitals and the stories they can tell of that is shocking and deplorable.)

Please don't start a flame war on that! :D

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Misadventures of a Crazed Kitchen Pirate

"Steve is the prototypical cool American male. Y'know, I'm talking about Steve McGarrett, alright? Steve Austin, Steve McQueen. Y'know, he's the guy on his horse, the guy alone. He has his own code of honor, his own code of ethics, his own rules of living, man. He never, ever tries to impress the women but he always gets the girl."

TheJake

I completely agree.
I would rather see farms subsidised and the entire welfare system demolished (cause we all know it wont be reformed) but thats another topic entirely.

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LiveFreeorDie

You also have to look at the long term big picture here. Right now, China is the low cost manufacturing hub of the world...but that will change. Just remember, 20 years ago Japan was the low cost manufacturing hub. When manufacturing kept growing in Japan, people became more and more highly skilled, the country became more industrialized, the cost of living went up and up and up and suddenly, it was not low cost anymore. Now it is one of the most expensive places in Asia with a very high standard of living and is a massive consumer economy of goods. That will happen in China as well over time. More and more people are migrating from rural, subsistence existences to work in the cities. They are earning money, buying cell phones, consuming goods and in effect becoming more and more an industrialized society. Over time, these new consumers grow, and grow, demand higher and higher wages and ultimately become a huge new market for the next low cost manufacturing region...perhaps Africa. It is a cycle that just continues onward...until there are no longer as many lower cost regions. Eventually, the market for goods will grow beyond the capacity of low cost regions to support them. Than I think free trade will become more viable as more of the world's countries will be on equal footing and can compete on the basis of quality and skill and innovation and not simply price and the lowest wage workforce. And BTW..the concept of sweatshops is way overblown by the media. They exist, yes, but are not the norm in many of the countries now supplying goods to the West. In China especially many of the global manufacturers have very high standards that are applied against all of their chinese suppliers. I have seen this first hand. anyway...I digress.

There needs to be a balance between protectionism and free trade. Striking that balance is difficult. On the one hand, low cost regions provide cheaper goods to the industrialized, high cost regions. This does benefit people - you have more purchasing power. However, the cost is a loss of the lower skilled, lower paying jobs. If you protect those jobs, you are going to create inflationary pressure on goods...in effect it becomes a more socialist system whereby the wages of lower skilled workers are in effect subsidized by the higher paid workers via higher priced goods - its a transfer of wealth. Maybe that's good, maybe its bad I don't know - everyone has their opinion. I think in many ways it is better to encourage people to become better trained and more highly skilled if possible and steer your workforce in new directions. I would rather see money spent on training and education rather than propping up industries that are not crucial to a countries self-sufficiency just so you can keep a certain segment of your population employed. I think we need to work to create BETTER jobs through education. There will always be a need for work requiring fewer skills, but trying to artificialy maintain a higher number of these jobs if its not necessary seems rather pointless and counter-productive.

Anyway...it will be an on-going debate for the next 50 or 100 years. I am not sure there is a "right" answer...there are many alternatives, with many possible outcomes that are hard to ultimately predict.

__________________
\\Jamie\\



"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin

"The plural of anecdote is not data"

MeTurk

I wouldn't say that, that's the run of thought on most things these days, more volume cheeper prices. But it depends who your producing for. If it's a city with millions of people then I guess your going to need a huge farm but I hate that move from country to city it's a horrible decay and I don't think we should encourage it.

At the same time you can't relie on one farm to suport a community but there has to be a happy balence in between the two. I've gone off on a bit of a tangent here i think but that's not hard with this subject there is really no problem here we can over produce food and so can the trid world countrys, there's more than enough to go around but politics and money are causing people to starve to death even though there's probably a gain store full to the rafters somewhere nearbye (I've seen that on the news here as well).

In all honesty I think the current system has reached it's limits, as a race we're being held back by our own red tape. We need a new system.

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