Should We Scrap CAP?

Time Magazine

Any contrasting views on this? My basic opinion is that through product dumping into Africa, it is aiding (no pun intended) the starvation of millions due to indigenous farmers being muscled out and thus should be phased out very quickly.

I'll post a more detailed response after I get some feedback, see what the scope of knowledge 'round these parts is.

Sleepy

I've never been a fan of any kind of protectionism tbh, and consider paying people for non-production a ludicrous notion. If an industry can't support itself at market prices, it's a non-viable industry. Case Closed. Scrap it.

The_Minister

Sleepy wrote:

Case Closed. Scrap it.

And if a war ever breaks out, and we are cut off from the rest of Europe, if a new blight destroys most crops in a large area etc. What then? We need to be able to produse the bare minimum. Also, making it too cutthroat will lead to corner-cutting and the use of dangerous pesticides, as it will be a very highly contested market.
Also, we would start importing from Africa (lower Labour costs) which has lower quality food, and rampant BSE.

The_Minister

I actually had a lecture, which featured the cap, shortly after I posted this.
The problem of dumping on Africa, is one of the reasons that they now pay farmers not to produce. It may seem to make less sense, but it is actually cheaper to pay them to grow nothing, as there are no transport costs, holding costs etc. to factor in. Also, since they can pay less to the farmers (as they are not producing, they have no costs) the new CAP is much better than the old.

I agree with The_Minister (sorry Ibid!)

We must maintain a minimum standard of agricultural production in order to hedge against future changes in either political or economic climates.

Also - EU Regs are quite severe on the process of agricultural production, other nations less so. The future cost of switching to lower quality and potentially dangerous (in the long run) products could lead to increased strain on health resources, and while these may not equate to the costs of dumping in Africa, they must not be ignored especially when the instability of African economies and political structures is considered.

whizzbang

Paying farmers to grow nothing seem like a bad idea to me. If they are not growing anything how could they be expected to restart growing food should we need it? ie in the case of a war.

Surely it would be better for them to grow some other crop (perhaps sugar beet to turn into biofuel) so that the equipment and expertise remains in use? If they dont' grow machinery will fall into disrepair and skills will be lost.

Does anyone know why the farmers who were growing beet for the recenty closed processing plants did not think of turning this into ethanol to fuel their machinery rather than just give up on the crop? The farmers of Ireland could be the new energy barrons if they played their cards right!

Does the CAP only cover food? or are other crops supported as well?

pjbrady1

Whizzbang,

Surely you realise that the beet farmers would have required an ethanol producing plant to produce ethanol. So maybe the little matter of not having an operatin Ethanol plant prevented them from producing ehtanol.

P.J.

netwhizkid

I would be in favour of scraping the cap and at least halve its budget as it is the singles biggest drainer of EU funds. I believe that instead of the stupid scenario we have now where farmers get paid not to produce, they should be instead paid farm in an environment friendly way which would be sustainable and to diversify their farming too.

There should be massive state intervention in the Energy sector and put land back to work producing bio-fuels and subvent these to under cut Oil. With every single cent of the profit ploughed back into the community. It would not take long under subvention for Ireland to realise it's true potential for Bio Fuels and for the sector to become self-sufficient. This would promote eco friendly farming plus carbon neutral fuels.

Promoting Forestry is also a good idea and more CAP funs should diverted into BroadLeaf Forestry and quickgrowing Conifers for Wood Chips etc.

However we should at least grow enough food and meat for out needs or at least have the potential to do so in a very quick period of time, Ireland is one country that should definitely have food security we did after all suffer a famine in our history.

While imported food maybe cheap it has massive environmental ramifications with Apples from New Zealand being a prime example, the average household cupboard will have food that will have travelled nearly 25,000 miles to get there. We need to promote our own foods and give VAT breaks to make them more competitive if necessary. As it stands farmers are pure stinge bags and amongst the biggest environmental polluters there is and proper regulation and incentives could change this.

CAP really was only an idea to butter up the farmers who once were a powerful force in Ireland and most of Western Europe into accepting European Free Market and Neo-Liberal unrestrained Capitalistic Neo-Conservatism. They accepted the fat bribery cheque and the manufacturing sectors and ordinary workers all across Europe are now paying the price, a Child born today is facing a more uncertain future and harsher battle to survive than have been seen in generations. The free Market only materialised for Big Business and consumers never benefited, instead to Import a Car you must pay VRT etc. That is reality.

The_Minister

I don't know what a "stinge bag" is, and I don't want to.
I can almost see the foam dripping down the computer screen, please try and be a little more....rational.

Time Magazine

netwhizkid wrote:

I would be in favour of scraping the cap and at least halve its budget as it is the singles biggest drainer of EU funds. I believe that instead of the stupid scenario we have now where farmers get paid not to produce, they should be instead paid farm in an environment friendly way which would be sustainable and to diversify their farming too.

That's a reasonable suggestion.

However,

However we should at least grow enough food and meat for out needs or at least have the potential to do so in a very quick period of time, Ireland is one country that should definitely have food security we did after all suffer a famine in our history.

How would you ensure we have enough food without a government subsidy system?

CAP really was only an idea to butter up the farmers who once were a powerful force in Ireland and most of Western Europe into accepting European Free Market and Neo-Liberal unrestrained Capitalistic Neo-Conservatism.

Neo-Liberal Capitalistic Conservatism? Roffle. CAP was set up to ensure we didn't starve.

a Child born today is facing a more uncertain future and harsher battle to survive than have been seen in generations.

Evidence? How do you argue that a child born today is facing a more uncertain future than a child born in Berlin in the summer of 1945? My dad was born in 1943, I don't have children, so before you argue otherwise that is within your timeframe.

The free Market only materialised for Big Business and consumers never benefited, instead to Import a Car you must pay VRT etc. That is reality.

Interesting how you argue against subsidies yet complain about Big Business 'neo-liberal conservative' business, and bemoan taxes on luxury goods at the same time.

I don't want to scare you off posting entirely, but that last paragraph in particular has all the hints of the stuff you got warned about previously – be careful like a good man.

netwhizkid

whoa, a car a luxury item? one of the most basic necessities more like. Anyway, I mean there should be system in place where our farmers get a good deal but us consumers must too.

Flooding the Market with cheap imports is no good to our farmers but there has to be a medium point diversification is this I believe. At one stage there was nearly 40million head of cattle in Ireland for about 3million people.

I think Ireland is well able to produce enough food, in a national emergency we don't need kiwis or coffee lates however we would have enough food to sustain the population. The thing is there are about 4.5million people in the country, ever see the skip at Dunnes/Lidl etc? we have I would estimate twice as much food available to us as we need, that great invention "Sell by Date" helps ensure this.

By scraping the CAP and keeping our farmers in business through diversification everyone will be happy, our sugar beet farmers some of whom would have been happy to grow beet for bio-fuels can't as there is no incentives for them to do so. This is an example of how everybody could be accommodated if their was will. Money is not really an issue here as we are one of the richest countries in the World however there don't seem to be a willingness to spend it.

Was that "careful" enough?

Time Magazine

netwhizkid wrote:

Was that "careful" enough?

Yep, that'll do nicely. Just making sure you don't go off the rails on a tangent, as I'm sure you'll agree is unhelpful.

whoa, a car a luxury item? one of the most basic necessities more like. Anyway, I mean there should be system in place where our farmers get a good deal but us consumers must too.

Don't you want a better public transport system? Don't you want a cleaner environment? Then you have to tax cars and get people on the trains and busses.

Flooding the Market with cheap imports is no good to our farmers

(Just like cheap cars are no good to our environment )

Flooding the Market with cheap imports is no good to our farmers but there has to be a medium point diversification is this I believe. At one stage there was nearly 40million head of cattle in Ireland for about 3million people.

This has very little to do with CAP, certainly not in the grander scheme of things. The OP, eh... me, specifically raised the questions of CAP exports and their impact on LDCs, not on Irish farmers.

I think Ireland is well able to produce enough food, in a national emergency we don't need kiwis or coffee lates however we would have enough food to sustain the population. The thing is there are about 4.5million people in the country, ever see the skip at Dunnes/Lidl etc? we have I would estimate twice as much food available to us as we need, that great invention "Sell by Date" helps ensure this.

I agree, except for the subtle incinuation that "Sell by Dates" (and by strange implication simply dumping them) is a profit-making scheme.

By scraping the CAP and keeping our farmers in business through diversification everyone will be happy, our sugar beet farmers some of whom would have been happy to grow beet for bio-fuels can't as there is no incentives for them to do so. This is an example of how everybody could be accommodated if their was will. Money is not really an issue here as we are one of the richest countries in the World however there don't seem to be a willingness to spend it.

TBH I think your argument that CAP should be scrapped as an incentive to aiding our transition to high-value agriculture is very good in theory. The only problem is that CAP isn't going to be scrapped because of that, it's an EU-wide thing, but certainly its abolition could force some changes for the better. Anyone, I'm looking at you _psycho and The_Minister, care to argue against?

Digi_Tilmitt

Scrap it and flood the country with cheap food. Then we'll finally be as rich as we're being told we are. Protectionism must die if humanity is to progress. Let's get it over with.

OfflerCrocGod

The CAP needs to just be slowly strangled and not instantly removed - it's a pity that politicians from 2 decades or so ago didn't see it's harm and began that process back then. Instead Thatcher just got the UK a pay back and never tried to fix the problem that created the need for the pay back which is a pity as it was a great opportunity lost but not something that is surprising as I doubt they though of the problems that these subsidies cause us now in the developed world with regards the Doha trade round.

The subsidies simply retarded the development of the farming sector by keeping running smaller less efficient farms and not letting larger farms win out in the market place like they would have in a normal open market. Linked to that is the amount of urbanisation a country experiences as people would be forced from the land and it's attendant economic development. So in other words subsidies to the agricultural sector are bad for everyone and are a very big no-no.

kwinabeeste

The CAP in its original format(s) was totally wrong producing surpluses that were just dumped on 3rd world markets. The new CAP though has its benefits. Food traceability is now a key issue across Europe and the CAP enables farmers to produce safe food as they are no longer concerned about getting the largest grant off the EU and is fixed (and decreasing over time). So the farmers must get the most from the market place. Also as agriculture also has a multifuctional aspect such as environmental benefits, and scenery benefits any eroding of CAP payments would encourage large scale farms such as in US. This would not be pleasing on the eye as the smaller fields across Europe and Ireland.

Also nobody has mentioned US Export Credits which are totally against fair play in developing countries. The US gets to dump all of its surpluses to the developing world and give them cheap loans to pay for it.

Also farmers aren't paid to grow nothing. They have grow a certain % of what they grew pre the new CAP deal to get their single farm payment.