Kay Easton9/4/04 3:49
In article , Jane Ransom
writes
What is really worrying us is the rate at which barns are being
converted into housing as more and more farmers are pushed out of
farming (why shouldn't a farmer have a decent standard of living?)
Why should only a farmer have his standard of living protected? The rest
of us have no guarantee that our chosen profession will continue to
support us, not matter how many of our generations of forefathers have
followed the same profession.
By all means argue that we need to protect farmers as a means of
providing food without reliance on imports, or to maintain the landscape
in the form that we have changed it to over the last few hundred years,
but I don't think the argument that anyone should be guaranteed a good
standard of living simply because they are doing the job they have
chosen to do is particularly compelling.
Possibly because historically, agricultural and horticultural professions
have been considered 'low paid' work, versus the more academic professions.
Being of the opinion that if push comes to shove, it's more important to eat
than have someone push a piece of paper around so that a doctor can treat my
whatever illness du jour I come up with, I'd rather support those who will
make eating possible! Now that we're at a stage when it is actually cheaper
for some farmers to pour away milk than sell it (or get rid of their herds
and sell more money) we're in a very poor situation, IMO.
We can import a LOT of food (from God alone knows what source) - we can't
import every academic or civil servant we need. Indeed, it could be argued
that this country isn't big enough to go on 'importing' people, especially
if they have to bed fed by native sources.......
So - academics are automatically protected by that fact whereas farmers
aren't is my take on Jane's remarks.
And if I'm wrong I still agree with her - a more realistic food pricing
programme and less supermarkets would go a LONG way to making sure we
understand the value of the food on our plate, in every sense.
Phew! ;-)
I think this country is going to be in big, big trouble food-wise, one of
these days.
--
Sacha
(remove the weeds to email me)