"Robert Seago" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jim Webster wrote:

I think so, but because of market forces more than anything else.


remember that current policy is to produce at world market prices. This
means we have to get costs down to world market levels.

Jim Webster
This is the great worry. I suspect that after transport and other
overheads, a farm business in Poland or Rumania, would easily outcompete
what could be achieved here.

In the farming press it is being commented that for the first time for years
intervention stocks are rising (rather than minor seasonal fluctuations) and
the vast majority of the surplus is coming from the east, the new entrants.

If the rest of the world was really allowed
to compete on an equal footing, there would be many people willing to be
delighted with a fraction of the earnings of a farmer here who could
legitimately regard himself as teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

This scenario has been experienced by manufacturing, with profound
results.

It is going to be experienced by more than just agriculture, doctors,
teachers, computer software, all of these are now open to competition from
the east and the new entrants.


I'm not sure that a massive intensification here in agriculture could
reduce costs enough to compete on the world market.

Cost reduction doesn't necessarily mean intensification. The total
abandonment of any structured grazing in some parts of the UK, arable land
just standing fallow for a year because the forward price of grain is too
low to justify planting, all these are possibilities. Total abandonment of
any work on hedgerows because they are an expensive luxury is another.

Jim Webster