Rational Agriculture

Two items have come up in the past few days which merit some attention.

One relates to agriculture here in Europe, where farmers are a small and, in some cases, well-off part of society. The other concerns the developing world, where farmers generally constitute the largest single social group and the vast majority of whom live in real poverty.

First, up for debate by the European Union is the UK's rebate on net contributions. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this (and the UK is the only country willing to defend it) the reason why it was negotiated in the first place is that the UK receives considerably less than the other large European economies in direct payments from the EU. And the reason for this is simply that half the European budget is taken up by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), most of which goes to support inefficient farming in southern Europe (although those of us further north also take our share).

In the past, the subsidies paid resulted in needless over-production and the infamous "milk lake" and "beef mountain". The worst excesses have been organised out of the system, and the move is now towards paying farmers just for owning land rather than for producing anything. Of course, the rewards are higher if the land is managed in ways deemed to be environmentally friendly. But the result is that people will be paid £70 per acre just for owning farmland. To some extent, this is a recognition that the countryside we expect to see in much of Europe has been shaped by agriculture and that we effectively have to subsidise people to keep it this way. And, to some extent, it addresses the greater wrong of subsidised crops destabilising world markets and making it even harder for poor people to earn a living growing cash crops.

And this brings me on to my second point. The Department for International Development has started a consultation process on its new Strategy for Research on Sustainable Agriculture, which will run for ten years from 2006. In many ways, this is eminently sensible, recognising that productive agriculture is the main route to lift people out of absolute poverty but that, as societies become more prosperous, farming becomes a less and less important part of their overall economies. However, there are some omissions. For example, the focus is clearly on developing crop varieties which are resistant to pests, diseases and other stresses, but makes no mention of crop protection. If Third World farmers really are to be helped, we should make available all the tools which can contribute to consistent harvests and, in many cases, that includes conventional crop protection.

For anyone who wants to make their views known, the public consultation runs until 13th June, and the website is SRSA-Consultation@dfid.gov.uk .