Shoppers must accept ‘cheap food culture has changed’

Apr 16 2008 by Sam Wood, The Journal

A NORTH farming leader has attacked French calls for a return to direct subsidies for European farming. French agriculture minister Michel Barnier said this week that Europe should put a brake on agriculture reforms in the face of alarming rises in world food prices.

Instead, he said, Brussels should revert to propping up EU farmers via cash aid to help them compete on world markets – a system which resulted in costly surpluses for years as food supply soared regardless of demand.

But NFU North East livestock chairman Malcolm Corbett, of Otterburn, felt a return to subsidies was not a good move for the industry.

He said: “As far as I’m concerned, all subsidies have ever done is force farmers to jump through hoops to qualify and claim the subsidy.

“It resulted in cheaper food for the consumer, not more money for farmers.

“Quite simply we have to accept that there is no will to start subsidies again and I don’t think there should be.

“We need to focus on getting the best price at the market place. That is the way to get more food produced.

“Arable and livestock farmers in Britain are capable of feeding the country. If subsidies came back in, we would be back to supermarkets squeezing producers.

“When we had subsidies farmers were told to come into the real world. Well, now retailers and consumers need to come into the real world. Consumers will have to accept there has been a change to the cheap food culture in Europe and that will hopefully make it more sustainable.”

Conservative Euro-MP Neil Parish, chairman of the European Parliament’s agriculture committee, has also joined the debate.

He said food security was vital for Europe, but only within a “market-orientated” Common Agricultural Policy.

“We need to target agricultural money in a way that can help support food production, but we can’t go back to where we were.

“Agricultural subsidies that attempt to manage the market lead to butter mountains and wine lakes, to overproduction and dumping on the developing world and to a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money.

“The CAP reforms we have made have been a step in the right direction, but now we must reform further and truly allow farmers to take advantage of the market.”

He said: “Europe needs to produce her fair share of food. There is a morality in food production now.

“Europe won’t starve if high prices remain, but other parts of the world may do.

“Europe can only address this through a market-led agricultural policy.”