By John Baeyens | Share This 
Last Monday, the foreign ministers of India and Brazil have called on developed nations, and especially Europe to end their famr subsidies and open their markets for free competition.
Can anybody explain me what the rational is for Europe to subsidize its expensive local farming with tax money? Why don't we use that tax money for other purposes and let the market determine the price of our daily bread and meat?
Riots of a handful of angry farmers living on our taxes versus riots of millions of people sick of virtual inflated prices.... Their used to be a discours of 'self sufficiency' in the decades after the war. But in this world this vision is so outdated. Apart from Brazil I don't know many countries who could actually survive in a modus of self-sufficiency (read: complete cut-off from the world). The subsidiies won't stand, that's for sure. The political weight of players like Brazil and India becomes to strong on the G8.
Posted 17 years ago
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The worse part is that by all this subsidizing their agriculture doesn't even stand a chance against our agriculture, which makes it impossible to trade, as they will always be more expensive.
Now, when our governments stop the subsidizing, I'm afraid we'll get a riot of angry farmers here...
Posted 17 years ago