Lots to write about tonight : comments [pmsumner]

Yeah, they do. They also think that they should be the only ones in the world to have the right to do it. *shrugs* I'm used to that kind of hypocrisy from that particular country. But it's more the genetically manipulated and hormone treated stuff that comes out of there that worries me and that I don't particularly want to eat.

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 US subsidizes its agricultural production less than the EU (forget the figures but I read it in the Economist), and has even proposed cutting subsidies to 5% of production at the latest WTO round. It's the EU that's holding up agricultural subsidy reform. The thing with the US, of course, is that we produce so damn much.

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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The Economist wants me to pay for that article. Not gonna happen. ;-)

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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Oh, I know the Economist can have its own agenda. But so does everything. And I know it's not reliable all the time; I wrote a letter about its championship of grammar schools, pointing out that its argument was based on grounds that have been pretty much conclusively disproved (particularly with regard to class access). I like it because it's usually interestignly biased.

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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Have a look at:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=1666610 (http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=1666610)

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I'm not a hardcore free market dude, just one who thinks that things should in general be left to their own devices.

But then I freely admit that I don't have the first clue abot the consequences of such a way of thinking.

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pmsumner

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