Surprisingly, I haven't heard the words in my headline used to describe the current situation in our industry. But if you include pigs and poultry under "horn" I think you will agree, it sums it up perfectly.
The phrase, or its opposite - Up Horn, Down Corn - dates back, of course, to the days before farming was supported by governments in the interests of guaranteed food supplies and consumer price stability. It reflects the fact that free markets always swing from surplus to shortage and back again and that when arable is profitable livestock is not and vice versa.
Whether that was what world governments and their economic advisers intended when they adopted the systems of free trade and globalisation is not clear. Whether they thought far enough ahead to a time like the present, when demand for arable commodities for food and energy is soaring, is even more uncertain. All they said was - there may be some price volatility.
Whatever the truth of the matter we have arrived at a point in the worlds economic cycle in which shortages are now a reality and, according to an Icelandic academic speaking at a conference today, the world faces the need to produce as much food in the next fifty years as it did in the previous 10,000.
Meanwhile Britain's policies have led to a significant reduction in our food self sufficiency. Do we all agree that those elected to govern us have got it wrong? Do they realise it yet? How will they respond?
Comments (2)
Yes the politcians have got it wrong, we have always known that. No I don't think they know it yet but when they do finally wake up and smell the coffee what are you betting it is somehow the farmers fault.
At least those of us that kept the faith and remained committed to production agriculture have now something to smile about.
Posted by David Hinchliffe | August 31, 2007 10:00 PM
Posted on August 31, 2007 22:00
It seems like I read a Matthew Paris bit a few years ago in which he said that the best thing for the country would be to let farming go the way of mining. He lobbed up some numbers about what tourism is worth and said that the money would be better without the noise, smell and environmental degredation of farming.
Of course, during my one trip to the UK, I was on an *agricultural* tour.
Food self sufficiency is a neglected notion in most Western societies. Here in the United States, we're paving over our highest value farm land in California and pushing vegetable and fruit production to South America. I'm sure the Chilean's don't mind, but you are right in questioning what these moves mean for a nation's food self-sufficiency.
Then again, if you hold land and farm it, what's so bad about your neighborhood being a little short in food. Seems to enhance the paycheck, no? At least until "the people" decide the land you hold is too valuable for one man and should be held publicly for the common good.
Posted by Steve | September 3, 2007 5:47 PM
Posted on September 3, 2007 17:47