An optimistic note. It is on an optimistic note that this column will conclude last week's remarks on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP): developments in public opinion can allow us to be confident. There is ever greater interest and attention given to food quality and safety, discussions on organic agriculture and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are carefully listened to, saving bio-diversity has become a great cause, there is even concern over food miles - the distances food travels. People are increasingly better understanding that all the above points, along with Europe's traditions and countryside, depend on agricultural activity. What gave the CAP such a bad reputation were the distortions of nature for which it was responsible or which it tolerated: paying for excess fruit to be destroyed, monoculture, animal cruelty. Positions against support for farmers and for total opening of Europe's borders to imports from anywhere did not come from the people. They were determined by very clear interests (major trade or some processing industries - the main concern of which is to find supplies at the lowest possible costs, etc) or, curiously, by higher sources: university economists or professors prepared to accept any intellectual gymnastics to justify their ideas.
Intellectual deviation. Taking agriculture as just another economic sector is, in my opinion, intellectual deviation. Agriculture is the only human activity directly related to nature, water and life. In Europe, it has fashioned crops, countryside and civilisation. To say that it is just another economic activity, subject to rules of permanently increasing productivity, is an aberration. Of course, farmers are not different from the rest of us. They are human beings, they can be greedy, they can cheat, and they might not be motivated by a desire to do their job well. The history of the CAP is littered with not very edifying episodes. That is why rules, discipline, monitoring are needed. However, most of the abuses are not carried out by agricultural producer “on the ground”, but very often take place in the subsequent stages of food production: trade; processing, the traffic in “export refunds”, or the arbitrary setting of world prices. The CAP has seen some not very glorious moments: wine distilled and made into fuel for the American market, butter mountains which inevitably went bad, cruelty in, for example, poultry or pig farming, water pollution. But these aberrations have by and large been corrected and improvements are still possible. That is why rules, mechanisms and monitoring, and, hence, the CAP must be kept as a European policy.
Are politicians changing too? Agricultural activity must be shared harmoniously among all member states. This principle was recognised quite a few years ago in a document drawn up by the Agriculture Council and approved by the “General” Council, which passed it on to the summit, where it was definitively adopted. It became apparent later that no head of government had read it, and it found its way onto one of Europe's, heavily laden, shelves. No doubt it is still there and historians could easily find it now that the files are open.
Political leaders also seem to be becoming aware of basic truths. In the past, agriculture was only important for their own countries. I have not forgotten the Netherlands' defence of its flowers or Germany's defence of its soft fruits, two countries which were perfectly happy to sacrifice other member states' agricultural activities in the name of world free competition. Today, we can even find British politicians supporting European agriculture.
Volte-face. At the same time, the importance of food agriculture for the developing world is well acknowledged. The volte-face by international bodies has been spectacular. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) admits that increasing world trade is not the panacea for the ills and difficulties of poor countries; it denounces the scourge of “monoculture for export” and recommends a return to subsistence agriculture. The World Bank says that agriculture is a key factor in recovering rural jobs that have been lost, stopping the ruinous flow of former farmers to the edges of cities and, at least partially, getting back lost food autonomy.
Nature must prevail against speculation and over the excesses of agricultural trade.
(F.R.)