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pmsumner at 10:20pm on 01/04/2003
pmsumner at 10:20pm on 01/04/2003I just watched a program on BBC 4 about the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy - for those of you outside the EU it's basically a system of subsidies for farmers and food producers which caused the butter mountains we all heard about in the mid-to-late 80s) and it's advantages/problems. Very interesting stuff. Whilst I was pretty much against the CAP scheme beforehand, I am almost vehemently against it now. Especially when seeing how the new EU member states were treated in this regard.
I never did understand before, and don't understand now, why the CAP is still in place. It had a purpose, and that purpose was much needed. It did it's job very well. But it's got out of control and it doesn't serve any useful purpose. People complain that if the CAP subsidies ended, loads of farmers would go out of business. Surely not - wouldn't prices just go up? Yes I'm ignoring the outside influences (3rd world country food production) but just how much of a factor are they?
On a completely different note, I'm wondering about something. There's a possibility of a new shift pattern starting at work. It's Monday to Friday, 1330 to 2200. Horrid shifts, but you have the weekends off. I'm unsure whether I should even be looking at this seriously, but the prospect of having weekends off and being able to do stuff without taking holidays here there and everywhere is very tempting. I would hate working 5 days in a row, I think. BUT.... it's 5 days a week, shorter shifts than I do now. BUT... I'd be losing 2 days off a week. And you just know I'd end up sleeping in until midday every day instead of "doing stuff".
I really don't think I should be considering this. Really. I like what we have. 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off and repeat.
Bonus should get paid tomorrow. We still don't know how much it is! I'll be checking the bank account frequently, through net/phone banking. Huzzah for technology.
I never did understand before, and don't understand now, why the CAP is still in place. It had a purpose, and that purpose was much needed. It did it's job very well. But it's got out of control and it doesn't serve any useful purpose. People complain that if the CAP subsidies ended, loads of farmers would go out of business. Surely not - wouldn't prices just go up? Yes I'm ignoring the outside influences (3rd world country food production) but just how much of a factor are they?
On a completely different note, I'm wondering about something. There's a possibility of a new shift pattern starting at work. It's Monday to Friday, 1330 to 2200. Horrid shifts, but you have the weekends off. I'm unsure whether I should even be looking at this seriously, but the prospect of having weekends off and being able to do stuff without taking holidays here there and everywhere is very tempting. I would hate working 5 days in a row, I think. BUT.... it's 5 days a week, shorter shifts than I do now. BUT... I'd be losing 2 days off a week. And you just know I'd end up sleeping in until midday every day instead of "doing stuff".
I really don't think I should be considering this. Really. I like what we have. 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off and repeat.
Bonus should get paid tomorrow. We still don't know how much it is! I'll be checking the bank account frequently, through net/phone banking. Huzzah for technology.
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If we could get rid of worldwide subsidies and just get a free market together in which we could sell at a price that is right, and buy at a price that's right, without having to go through all this.... *dreams of a world where everyone joins hands and sings kum-ba-ya all day long*
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And OMG, you sound like a hard-core free-market economist. That's my job. :-) Except that I think the market is overrated.
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The reason the CAP is still in place is France. The agricultural lobby is huge and the French public has been deluded into thinking the CAP protects traditional French farming when in fact it mainly subsidizes big producers. France got Germany to agree to maintaining CAP spending until 2013. The European Commission suggested, as an intermediate step, redirecting CAP money so it wouldn't distort the market as much. France views its German deal as preventing any reform. The American position is that we'll slash subsidies but only if everyone does.
As for GM, I think there's a lot of hysteria out there. Some GM stuff could be beneficial to the Third World (like the golden rice that was developed)--it's just a question of working out a way that poor farmers don't get screwed. And really, it's six of one or half a dozen of another. Either it's GM or lots of pesticides. Organic is very much a rich-people privilege--there's no way we could grow enough food if we didn't kill pests somehow.
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One of the first things they taught us (in a fairly subtle way among all the encouragement to read the Economist) in my economics degree was that the Economist is not the most reliable source on things and is, if anything, a huge lobbying mechanism (at times of really poor quality).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending CAP. And I know it's the French who are keeping it going. Ah, well, it's gonna cause so many problems with EU enlargement that after that even the French will want to get rid of it. Then again, what's not gonna cause problems with EU enlargement? I just hope they don't decide to get rid of the EU itself. ;-)
I'm not an expert on agriculture, and don't know if we can produce enough food without pesticides and GM. What really pisses me off though, is that both the EU and the US are overproducing while everyone else is starving. And GM food (provided it doesn't kill them in the long run) will only help those Third World countries who have the money (oil? ;-) to buy the licenses off some nice big corporations. It's not so much hysteria as simply the fact that we don't know the long term effects of that kind of thing.
Excuse the incoherence. Too early in the morning.
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I have a subscription so I can access everything on the website--I didn't see the little premium logo next to that link so I thought it was a freebie. Oops.
The French solution with regard to EU expansion and the CAP is simple: Exclude the newcomers from feeding at the CAP trough.
Famine is not primarily about production; it's about distribution. I know that Amatya Sen's work isn't universally accepted, but it is true that nowadays we do have enough to feed poor people; it's just in the wrong places. One of the things the article brings up is that the US and EU have very different viewpoints on agriculture. THe US (along with Canada, Australia, and Brazil) is an exporter. Lowering trade barriers is in the US' interest, because we want to be able to sell.
Personally, I think the whole license problem could be solved. Let the US government pay for it (or make it equal in cost to traditional seed), then there won't be any question of companies trying to screw Third World farmers. The farmers can then make their decisions based on what they think will have the best results. The companies are really in a tight spot: they got pressured to make sure the GM plants couldn't spread, but then people pointed out that this meant they'd have to pay more every year. I don't think it's unreasonable for Monsanto or whatever to want to make back their investment. It's commercial research. The alternative is better funding for public research so farmers aren't beholden to companies.
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http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=1666610 (http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=1666610)
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But then I freely admit that I don't have the first clue abot the consequences of such a way of thinking.