David's Digest

Yesterday the Financial Times and the Guardian reported that British Chancellor, Alistair Darling, was writing to all his EU counterparts to urge them to abolish the CAP. He was said to be of the opinion that some parts of it keep food prices above world market levels and he wants an end to all direct payments to farmers because they are "unacceptable".

Surprise, surprise. It is the typical short sighted reaction of a politician who seeks to shift the blame for high food prices from government to producers. Never mind international agreements; forget that it was his (and other) governments policies that led to the decline in domestic production. He ignores the fact that goverments around the world were warned for years that they were heading for a food supply disaster that is now happening forcing prices up because of insufficient supply.

Furthermore he deliberately does forgets two other key facts. One, that farmers have been subsidising consumers for much of the last ten years as they continued producing, albeit at reduced levels, for returns that in many cases were less than their costs. Two, although commodity prices have risen sharply in the last few months, production costs have gone up by at least the same percentage, if not greater.

Stop direct payments and farmers will very quickly be losing money again. And what will happen then? They will once again reduce production making the food supply crisis even worse. Alistair Darling is not only dishonest for attempting to wriggle out of agreed policies. He must also be very stupid.