-Caveat Lector- From http://www.marxist.com/Europe/foot_and_mouth.html >>>Don't let a name or label dissuade from the truth<<< }}>Begin Foot and mouth - a disease of the profit system Over the past weeks the news has been dominated by the story ofyet another crisis in farming. Appalling pictures of funeral pyres ofanimal victims of the foot and mouth outbreak have even made thefront page of stateside-based 'Time' magazine. What the hell is goingon? What is going on is capitalism as usual on the farm. 'Townies' canbe a bit schizophrenic in their attitude to farmers. On the one handyou hear about farmers driving around in Range Rovers paid for out ofthe European Union's Common Agricultural Policy subsidies. Then youread the horror stories about smallholders who are only getting paid£1 for a sheep. Which is true? They're both right. On the one hand farming is one the mostcosseted sectors in the so-called free market system. Brusselsbureaucrats dished out £23 billion in subsidies last year -£3 billion in Britain, where there are just 168,000 farms. Thatwas just European Union largesse. BSE cost us, the taxpayer, over £600 million in compensation. It seems the BSE outbreak was ahealth and financial crisis for the rest of us, not for beeffarmers! So if someone suggests that occasional disease is a cost ofthe cheap food the farmers are providing through intensiveagriculture, don't forget you're paying for food twice - once at the checkout and a second time through tax deductions from your paypacket. Farmers should be in clover. But actually it's the richest 20% offarmers who get 80% of the subsidies from the public purse. And it istrue, despite the whining from rich farmers that we hear all thetime, that farming is at present in crisis. A supermarket pays 17pfor a litre of milk. But it costs the dairy farmer 22p to produce.And sheep do sell for as low as £1. The majority of farmers arestruggling. And tens of thousands have lef t the industry. Ten yearsago there were 233,000 farms. Now only 168,000 are left. 70% of these farm s only provide a livelihood for one person. At the same timethere are 4,000 acre prairies worked by £150,000 tractorsdi rected by satellite navigation. Farming is big business, with thelittle people going to the wall as the big firms flourish. And that'swhere foot and mouth comes in. The initial reaction of consumers (and that's all of us) to thenews of the outbreak is along the li nes of, 'Oh no, the food industryis poisoning us again'. And that's not true. No human can suffer theeffects of foot a nd mouth. And the disease is not fatal to the vastmajority of farm animals. It's the animal equival ent of flu. Atworst, if the disease were left to run its course, about 5% of theyoungest, oldest an d weakest creatures would perish. The rest wouldsuffer discomfort for about the same length of time we suffer fromflu, and then recover. So what's the problem? The problem is money. The reason the farm industry has poisonedour food so often in the past has al ways been for money. The goodnews: a cow now yields 5,800 litres of milk a year compared with4,000 litres twenty years ago. The bad news: we infected our herdswith mad cow disease to get that result, and the disease ju mped fromthat species through the food chain to kill humans horribly. To getmilk yields up it was n ecessary to put a li ttle protein in thecattle's diet. To add protein it was necessary to turn them into cannibals by fe eding them with dead sheep and cows. What the presentoutbreak has in common with past contagions is that it is 'anecono mic disease', as some commentators have noted. In the main ithurts the big farmers who are responsi ble for the lion's share of the£1.2 billion of meat and livestock exported every year. One of the symptoms of foot and mouth is loss of appetite. Andmeat animals are treated by capitalis t intensive farming as eatingmachines until it is time to go to slaughter. For instance it takes 5 months to get a pigl et ready for market. A further delay of a monthor so makes pig breeding uneconomic. As Ian Campbell of the NationalPig Association puts it, "(Waiting) would severely damage theeconomics of it." The mass slaughter is being conducted for one reason - because itis the most profitable course of a ction. As Matthew Fort says(Observer March 11), "Commercial operations, of which farming areone, ar e designed to make a profit. You can no more expect them toput social consequences above that need for profit than you canexpect a great white shark to become a vegetarian." Most of us, including most meat eaters, are horrified at thescenes of unnecessary slaughter from th e country. Who is taking thesedecisions on our behalf? For the farming industry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheri es and Food there is no alternative. The farmersare represented in the corridors of power by the Na tional Farmers'Union. In fact the NFU pushes the interests of the bigagribusinesses. The MAFF, in t urn, is supposed to represent ourinterests to the farm industry. In fact for decades the Ministry hasmisrepresented the interests of agrarian capitalism to the rest ofus, and has not hesitated to cover up the fatal con sequences ofcost-cu tting, right up to the last moment. They led the whisperingcampaign against Richard Lacey, the micr obiologist. who predicted in1988 that humans could catch CJD from eating beef infected with BSE. There are alternatives to shooting the animals and burning thebodies. The first one is to let the d isease run its course. We don'tactually know when the virus first started to cause outbreaks. Befor ethe twentieth centu ry, the only option for farmers was to put up withthe loss of output. The problem is that foot and mouth is quiteincredibly infectious. It can be borne on the wind for quite adistance, so it is like ly that the entire p opulation of farm animalsin the country would go down with it. Capitalist farmers affect tofind thi s insupportable. In fact all they have to do is sit tight andwait for the compensation. The second alternative is vaccination. Again there is no technicalproblem. The form of foot and mou th we are confronting (type 'O') hasa well-developed and effective vaccine available. There are mil lionsof shots of it stored in the European Union for use. But it'sexpensive. Farmers have to pay for the vaccine. But if animals areslaughtered, we the taxpayer foot the bill for compensation. As thePresident of the B ritish Veterinary As sociation comments, "You'rebalancing costs with benefits." In other words it's all about moneyagain . The other problem about vaccination is 'the British'. That's notyou and me, of course. We never get consulted about matters of foodsafety and animal welfare. But the big farmers in the NFU lobbied t he MAFF and the MAFF lobbied the European Commission. The French,Germans and some other governments were all in favour o f a policy ofmass vaccination against foot and mouth. The European Commission waspersuaded by the B ritish farm interest that vaccination showed therewere still traces of the disease in a country. And if you have traces of the disease in your country, you shouldn't be allowed to exportinto the single market. This is a never-never land ar gument! It meansthat the only policy left to an exporting nation is mass slaughter.In 1967, during the last major outbreak, 400,000 animals were destroyed. And there will be further losses for hard- pressed farmers.We a re entering the lambing season. Ewes have to be brought indoorsto give birth. But in quarantined ar eas they can't be moved. "Thismorning at 5am., farmer Meirion Lloyd will have trekked four miles to pick his dead lambs out of pools of blood in the mud. Some might behanging stillborn from their mothers. Others will h ave died from coldand starvation. Rain will be pounding their field in northWales."(The Guardian, 1 0th March) These she ep are unaffected by footand mouth. In any case why are animals shipped such long distances? It causesstress to the creatures and harms the quality of the meat. Again thereason is the scams and quirks of food as a capitalist business. Mostmeat customers are prepared to pay over the odds for home producedmeat. Now the requirements for acquiring a new n ationality for farmanimals would make the Hindujas envious. Two weeks' residence in France makes a sheep a French sheep! This concession was made becauseof the lobbying of the 'British' (the MAFF and the big farmers) wh ohave spearheaded the drive for deregulation and neoliberalism in the European Union. So sheep rear ed in Britain are tak en on longtraumatic journeys to France or other continental countries. Oncethey've acquired French nationality, any attempt by the sheep toexplore their new Gallic identity is cut short by a bolt in the head. The European Union has regulations on traceability. We need toknow where meat has come from. With a ll these food scares, quiteright too. In effect livestock travelling across borders should carrya p assport. These regul ations were opposed by the 'British' (you knowwho) on the grounds that this was the nanny state sha ckling theanimal spirits of entrepreneurs - in other words the right of richfarmers to poison us. T he European Commissi on started taking actionagainst the UK to enforce traceability two years ago. They werebrusquely ig nored by a Labour administration that grovels tocapitalism One reason why livestock are transported long distances withinBritain is because many of the small local abattoirs have closedtheir doors. The slaughtering industry is going the way of the restof th e food industry - th e big firms engulf the little ones. Theoriginal outbreak of foot and mouth seems to have been in He ddon-on-the-wall, outside Newcastle. This farm was a revolting slumwith rotting pig carcasses lying in the pigpens with the liveanimals. It should have been closed down on health and safety groundslong ago. It was linke d to a slaughterhouse in Essex, hundreds ofmiles away. Pigs from the farm were sold at a market in Carlisle to afarmer from Dartmoor - again hundreds of miles distant. This operatoris described as a farmer, but he see ms to be a dealer or speculatorin livestock - prepared to drive all over the country in search of a bargain. Of course w hat all this travelling does is to immediatelyamplify any localised outbreak into a national disast er. If we stillhad the local abattoirs any local infection could be contained. 'Globalisation' in t he food industry mean s we import beef fromNamibia while exporting home produce all over the world. Naturally tobe shippe d such distances the meat must be treated with chemicals and processed. And imported meat can sprea d the disease. Southe rn Africahas seen outbreaks of type 'O' foot and mouth recently. This is not really a farming crisis. It is a crisis of thecountryside. Most people who live in the countryside are not farmers.John Major can forget his fantasy about 'old maids cycling to holycommu nion through the ear ly morning mist.' Country dwellers inaffected areas are effectively under house arrest. They can't even goto church! Rural schools have been closed because of the epidemic.Normal everyday life in th e country areas has ground to a standstill. Farmers don't own the countryside. It belongs to all of us.Millions of city dwellers use the countr yside every weekend forrecreation - walking, cycling, riding, sports and sightseeing.Farmers are ju st custodians of the countryside. And their industryhas sealed it off from us. Rural tourism is reckoned to be a£1.2 bi llion industry. So far the hotel owners, bed andbreakfast accommodation, tea shoppes and country pu bs have beenhaemorr haging £100 million a week. This compares with the£30 million lost to the farmers. The streetwise c ommercialfarmers already have their hands outstretched for compensation. But the tourism industry w ill never get that mo ney back. Country tourismactually provides five times as many jobs as farming. And as we comeup to the crucial Easter and May bank holiday weekends, it looks as though the country will still be clos ed for business. The owner ofthe Wasdale Head Inn works it all out. He's lost £26,000 so farbecause there are 600 sheep in the valley worth £30 each. "Atlocal market prices...I could have bought every single beast in th evalley and have mo ney to spare for a great night out. I could buy allthe sheep, slaughter them, let the walkers and c limbers back in andremain open for business - it would make more sense." This is thelogic of the po licy carried out by Nick Brown at the behest of thebig farmers. This is the logic of capitalism! Country dwellers have all sorts of problems which have beencompounded by the present crisis. Rural Post Offices are going to thewall. The Post Office is a publicly owned business. It ought to bepubl icly accountable. Bu t its managers have been instructed tomaximise profits, and minimise costs, just like a private fir m. Theother hub of village life apart from the shop/post office is likelyto be the pub. Four or fiv e country pubs a wee k cease trading.Usually they are turned into upmarket housing. The influx of commuters and affluent retired people into villages drives up houseprices beyond the reach of many who were born there. A nd Labour hasfailed to deliver on its manifesto pledge to save country bus routes,a lifeline for those who can't afford a car. Farmers are just one link in the food chain. Compared with thesupermarket chains, they are small fr y. So the supermarkets, throughtheir buying power, have farmers by the short hairs. Fifty years ago farmers got 50-60% o f the price of food returned to them as revenue.Now it's only 9p in the pound. Last year the Compet ition Commissiontook a look at supermarkets. It wasn't easy. Their suppliers wouldonly give evidenc e if they were grant ed anonymity. The Commissionspoke of 'a climate of apprehension'. 'Fear' would be a better word.The y had such leverage over small farmers that 'a request amounted tothe same thing as a requirement.' In particular the b ig chains made'requests for retrospective discounts'. They were demanding moneywith menaces! It's t rue that Tony Blair recently had a pop at thesupermarkets for the food crisis. But with the likes o f LordSainsbury in the government, they've had an easy ride since 1997. The farmers respond to the pressure from supermarkets in the onlyway they know: by relentless cost- cutting. This is inevitably at theexpense of animal welfare and our food health. A broiler chicken reared for sale in a supermarket lives out its life in a space thesize of a sheet of A4 paper (the size of the front cov er of theSocialist Appeal journal!). No wonder 'Which', the journal of theConsumer's Association, f ound 22% of poultry were riddled withinfections. We have paid a very high price for these economies in the food indust ry. But the firms who cut the corners are not thepeople who pay the bills in terms of disease and a ll the other socialc osts. The Irish, the French and Germans too are understandablyfurious as they are forced to slaught er thousands of importedlivestock because the 'dirty man of Europe' has yet again failed toexercise any minimum of cont rol over the drive for profit in the foodindustry. They will have to pay the price. Britain remain s a countrywhere capital is king and where the civil service is imbued with aThatcherite, neolibera l attitude of indiff erence to the publicwelfare. This after four years of a Labour government! What the crisis shows is the conflict between the profit motiveand the wider social interest. It is easy to blame farmers, but theyare just a cog in the money-making machine. We cannot go on likethis! We need a fundamental rethink of our food industry. Individualfarmers can't change things. They're cutting corners because theyhave no alternative. They are responding to market forces. Marketforces are not an expression of what people want. We don't 'vote'with our money to be poisoned. Market forces are the way the rule ofprofit imposes itself on us. We can have healthy nutritious food fromanimals reared in humane conditions. Or we can have a capitalist foodindustry. We can't have both. Mick Brooks, March 13th, 2001 End<{{ T' A<>E<>R Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The libertarian therefore considers one of his prime educational tasks is to spread the demystification and desanctification of the State among its hapless subjects. His task is to demonstrate repeatedly and in depth that not only the emperor but even the "democratic" State has no clothes; that all governments subsist by exploitive rule over the public; and that such rule is the reverse of objective necessity. He strives to show that the existence of taxation and the State necessarily sets up a class division between the exploiting rulers and the exploited ruled. He seeks to show that the task of the court intellectuals who have always supported the State has ever been to weave mystification in order to induce the public to accept State rule and that these intellectuals obtain, in return, a share in the power and pelf extracted by the rulers from their deluded subjects. [[For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Murray N. Rothbard, Fox & Wilkes, 1973, 1978, p. 25]] <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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