FOOD FIGHT "Everywhere on these Isles, rich and beautiful habitats have been ploughed, bulldozed and sprayed out of existence, not as a result of need but in response to farm subsidies" - Graham Harvey, The Killing of the Countryside This week the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming published its long awaited report on what they see as the future of agriculture in the UK. Commissioned by the government in the wake of the foot and mouth crisis, it recommends changes in the way we produce our food, namely that more money be spent on organic farming methods and subsidies towards the protection of the environment rather than for food production. Foot and mouth was just the latest in a long line of disasters to illustrate the unhealthy state of UK farming. Since the introduction of subsidies in the last few decades, farming has largely become an industrialised process just like any other manufacturing industry. Many parts of Britain could be described as agricultural wastelands, devoid of wildlife and plants. Look out across the countryside in some parts of the UK and you'll see endless fields of chemically contaminated monocrop, separated not by hedgerows but by roads and barbed wire. Over 10,000 miles of hedgerows disappear each year. 97% of meadowland has been lost since WW2, and many water courses have been heavily polluted through extensive f chemical use. Prof. Jules Pretty of the University of Essex has calculated that even before foot and mouth, the hidden costs of industrial agriculture to our health and environment added up to �2.3billion a year. It's estimated that in the last 2 years at least 40,000 people have lost their jobs in agriculture. Many people have come to accept the failures of the modern farming system as the price we have to pay for cheap food. But with the taxpayer contributing to the �3billion in subsidies paid to farmers each year, each family is actually paying an extra �10 a week. Supermarket Sweep On the face of it we'd have to agree with Tony Blur for once, who welcomed the new report saying that "the current situation benefits no-one: farmers, taxpayers, consumers or the environment." But er, sorry Tony but we think Tesco might disagree with you there. Supermarkets are raking it in, with Tesco's profits rising every year in the last decade, last year amassing over �1bn. The supermarkets' power on our food chain has become almost complete, and the result has been that our agricultural land now looks like the supermarkets they are servicing. A fifth of farms, mostly the wealthy ones in this country received 80 percent of the annual production subsides. This mis-distribution of subsidies has been compared to the government choosing to subside grocery shops, and giving all the money to Tescos and Sainsbury's. And farming just like the retail world has had it's casualties - small farms are closing all the time while the large monoculture farms (yer Tesco equivalent) keep growing. But even these big farms are being screwed by the supermarkets they serve. For example a litre of milk in March last year costs 22p to produce, farmers were being paid 17.6p for each litre, the supermarket was selling it for 35p, that's 17.4p profit for supermarkets and a bill of 4.4p to tax payer for subsidies, which means that we are subsidising the supermarkets! Overall today in the UK only 9p of each pound you spend ends up in the farmer's pocket. Food Chained Marion Shoard the author of "This Land is Our Land" told SchNEWS that this idea of environmental subsidies assumes that farmers know what's best, yet considering that they're the ones who've been busy destroying the landscape in the first place, putting our faith in them helping to restore it is a bit laughable. Marion believes that the best way to shake up our agricultural system is to get rid of subsidies altogether. She believes that land prices would then plummet and farming would become more profitable, this would then allow land to be bought by environmental and social groups for the public good. This sounded like a good idea so we tried to track down some farmers who've managed to survive without subsidies, but unfortunately we couldn't find any. Not surprising really when the price farmers get for their produce is often less than it costs them to produce it in the first place. But regardless of whether or not redirecting subsidies are the solution to our problems, nothing is likely to change until there is a serious shift in the balance of power in the food chain. The biggest villains of all are the supermarkets who've made us believe they're providing us with cheap food. The report does nothing to challenge the powers of supermarkets, which isn't surprising when you consider that Peter Davis from Sainsbury's was a member of the Committee. Professor Pretty points out "The quest for even cheaper food is at the root of all these problems. It has encouraged farmers to cut corners, compromising food safety, animal welfare and damaging the environment." * Further reading "The Killing of the Countryside" by Graham Harvey. For a history of the landownership in Britain read "This Land is Our Land - The struggle for Britain's Country" By Marion Shoard. Loads of information on supermarkets at www.corporatewatch.org.uk
