On Sat, 21 Dec 2002 12:04:42 -0000, "Michael Saunby"
wrote:


"Torsten Brinch" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 20 Dec 2002 21:50:34 +0000, Tim Lamb
wrote:
How about conspiracy theory?

In a country without a command economy is it easier for government to
control agricultural production with or without paying subsidy?

It was never a secret that cap in the origin, and all along the way
has come with intents to influence agricultural production. The mental
exercise is to realise that government has very little such intent any
more, and far less than it needs to justify the current cap payments.


UK government is a complex beast. Just because parliament, or government
ministers, or the cabinet, or whichever group you believe no longer
supports farming subsidy, wishes to end it immediately, doesn't mean that
the machinery of government will not, one way or another, provide subsidy
for farming for the rest of our lifetimes. It may not be a direct payment
for production (that's not really what happens now anyway), but it will be
some form of support to the food production industries.

Mental exercises is to keep different aspects of a complex situation
clearly separated, not to deny it.

"Surely the government should help the industry to do its business,
and pay for what the nation requires of the industry through our
environmental and conservation agenda [and] not by subsidising the
industry to produce goods that are not wanted in the market place?"
(Ms Beckett, January 2002)

For example there
are often complaints from environmentalists that some areas are over
grazed, so clearly there will be pressure for government to regulate
grazing, even if government doesn't determine the size of the national
sheep flock through quotas. snip

There is a perilous mix up of two different concepts of overgrazing.
On one hand agricultural production is controlled by the manager's
intent to graze the land most efficiently in his production situation,
on the other hand society may intend land to be grazed less than that
might lead to save a bug or a rare flower.

I am not saying the two intents necessarily must come out in
physically separate enterprises, but mentally they should be kept
separate, since only the latter can be used as justification for
subsidy. To be sure, the public will want to know if they get
countryside value for the money; the environmentalist will measure out
if enough environment comes out of it; and the government will most
certainly not like to be seen as misallocating the resources of
society.