WTO

irish_bob

as someone who was born on a farm , i do take notice of whats going on in geneva right now and how it may affect irish agriculture
any thoughts on the wto , is the ifa,s possition motivated purely by economic factors or if peter mandelson gets his way , will it spell disaster for rural ireland
personally i think the ifa are most likely exagerating but then again there only doing there job as a lobby group
the french seem to be firmly on the irish side so it seems irish farmers are not the only ones worried

RDM_83

I've not read up on any off the aboves positions but I'l through in this

Was at a mini-conference a while ago (Forestry area) at this was an relatively official with responsibility for agro-chemicals, one of the points that was brought up was brought up was that there is increasing regulation on usage and methods within the EU but that imports are not subject to these regulations so if trade barriers are relaxed there is certainly certain areas that could suffer quite badly.
He also made the point that he was did not want to see any more power given to the EU parliment as it is possible to deal with the commision and put forward concerns etc but that you'd never get a politician to stand up and defend chemical use (especially as the greens are a powerful force in the European Parliament)

ps there's a reason Mandy is in Europe now- look at his track record

oscarBravo

RDM_83 wrote: »

He also made the point that he was did not want to see any more power given to the EU parliment as it is possible to deal with the commision...

So much for democracy.

Apparently the IFA have pissed off the Agriculture Commissioner in a big way.

RDM_83

Well the EU debate has thrown up a lot of different opinions of what/how a democracy should function ;-)
(refering to the fact that there's been quite a few posts indicating that joe public isn't qualified to understand a complex treaty, opinion you quoted above simply expresses that a German Green from Frankfurt may not be qualified to understand issues of an Irish farmer)

anyway this is no longer a pressing issue
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0729/breaking68.htm

Pride Fighter

IMO agriculture should be purely local if at all possible. What is the point in importing Brazillian beef that travels 10,000 miles when we have perfectly good beef here. The only agricultural produce nations in general should import are exotic fruits and vegetables they cannot produce. It is bad for the carbon footprint.

SkepticOne

Pride Fighter wrote: »

IMO agriculture should be purely local if at all possible. What is the point in importing Brazillian beef that travels 10,000 miles when we have perfectly good beef here. The only agricultural produce nations in general should import are exotic fruits and vegetables they cannot produce. It is bad for the carbon footprint.

This is why EU subsidies are damaging. They undermine local markets. Ireland produces far more beef than it needs or that would otherwise be economically justified. This beef is then shipped around the world contributing to global warming.

Scofflaw

SkepticOne wrote: »

This is why EU subsidies are damaging. They undermine local markets. Ireland produces far more beef than it needs or that would otherwise be economically justified. This beef is then shipped around the world contributing to global warming.

There's truth in that - but if the EU dropped its agricultural subsidies and protectionism, we'd be importing most of our food from the Third World.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Pride Fighter

Scofflaw wrote: »

There's truth in that - but if the EU dropped its agricultural subsidies and protectionism, we'd be importing most of our food from the Third World.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Exactly, which would be nothing but a waste of petrol when we can produce plenty here.

edanto

I just don't get farm subsidies. As a concept, why should farming be more special than trying to make a living from clothesmaking or having a restaurant?

Sure, there are emotional ties to the land, and dedicated people all over the country that get deserved pride from working all the hours in the day to make the best food for us - but why should they get handouts from the government?

Here's a report from a US conference last year.

Since the Great Depression, lobbying by farmers has proved particularly lucrative but has threatened to detach agricultural production from the objective of efficiently producing food for consumers. Today, farm policy consists of an array of subsidies, regulations, spending programs, and land-use restrictions which are widely blamed for the increased cost of food, environmental degradation, fiscal burdens, and the failure of global trade negotiations.

For several decades, AEI has brought together researchers to assess the impact of existing farm programs and to help provide the analytical underpinning for future reform efforts. This year, prior to a new round of legislation, AEI commissioned twenty-one working papers from the nation’s leading agricultural economists to evaluate the legitimacy of specific rationales for government intervention in the marketplace."

http://www.aei.org/docLib/20070516_Summary.pdf

Some choice quotes:
Elimination of farm subsidies for corn, wheat, and soybeans would have little effect on farm production or commodity prices. These Title 1 subsidies are in effect “money for nothing.” (Babcock, p. 41)
Agriculture has continued to flourish in countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, which have made significant, market-friendly reforms to their agricultural policies. (Alston, p. 83)

Over the longer term (beyond the eight to ten years of the baseline projections discussed earlier), the downsides of an end to commodity programs {their term for subsidies} will be lessened, and the upsides heightened, for all American economic interests. First, the United States would be in a better position to obtain improved access to foreign markets for U.S. agricultural products, a more promising source of income for U.S. farming than government subsidies could hope to provide—as argued in the papers of Sumner
(2007b) and Josling (2007).

LostinBlanch

Well. I'll throw in two words which might have come out of fashion, though seem to be making a comeback recently - food security. IMO that should be the the primary aspect of our agricultural policy. First of all, make sure that we can secure our food supply and then put the rest into storage or for export.

Kama

Agree Blanch. Food security should imo be a priority, as a hedge against supply disruption, with lowered food miles in carbon/energy terms.

SkepticOne

I would partly agree with the food security angle if there was somebody working out what was needed in the country and adjusting subsidies accordingly. A system where 80% of beef is exported and vast areas of land are devoted to beef production is not one concerned with food security or indeed global warming. Our system of subsidies has undermined food security. A proper food security policy would look at essential items, work out what is imported and see what capacity there was in the country that could be expanded in times of need or something along those lines.

The high price of food at the moment should mean less subsidy is needed to maintain production not more, yet at present you have farmers arguing for more on the basis of food security. When food prices are low, of course, you also get them arguing for subsidies on the basis that they can't make profit on the prices they get.

edanto

Everyone knows that the bulk of the profits made are along the chain - and not at the farm. If subsidies were abolished, it stands to reason that mart prices would increase, and either the distributors/supermarkets would have to make less profits or food prices would go up.

Either way, I don't really see what in the world that has to do with food security - which I would define as a reliable supply of essential foodstuffs. Does anyone suspect that the abolition of subsidies would lead to all of the farmers suddenly forgetting everything that they know about food production?