Torsten Brinch wrote in message
...
On Tue, 24 Dec 2002 16:48:37 -0000, "Michael Saunby"
wrote:

Farmer income is not affected in a meaningful way by the production
volume. The labour (including management) required to produce a tonne
of any commodity is constantly falling. Farmers are forced to leave
the industry due to ever increasing production efficiency. This means
fewer farmers remain to share the total income from farming between,
and each of them can get more.

except that the price has been falling in real terms since the war, so
not only are there less farmers, they are dividing a smaller cake
between them.

Also as you get less farmers, politically they become less important so
the cake can shrink even faster.


--
Jim Webster

"The pasture of stupidity is unwholesome to mankind"

'Abd-ar-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun al-Hadrami'