I was listening to Radio 4 today and there was an article on cheap food, which mentioned, inter alia, that the government has a policy of keeping food cheap, to the detriment of farmers in particular and others in general.
This is something my mother had been wont to bring up now and again since my childhood and for some time I wondered why.
However, my wondering ceased when I heard on Radio 4 a few months ago that 100 years ago, on average, 20% of the expenditure of the poor went on rent and 50% on food. Now it's the other way around. A similar point is made in this article.
So basically, farmers are kept poor and subsidised, we eat rubbish food and animals are reared in inhumane conditions so that landlords can grow rich, but, of course, it's never put like that.
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5 hours ago
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The agribusiness firms are still profitable, mostly around the North American midwest, but critics -- several souring on anything but a "just profit" -- have attacked the corporate mindset and grabbiness at the lower organization ranks, as well as in the sales force.
No one can force a corporation not to make money; that is just sophistry at work. But what we can do, I suspect, is shop a little more wisely and find out who's getting our money. Standing in the aisles at Tesco next time, maybe we'll feel a little better about our actions, our hearts beating in the right place this time.
@MW
"that the government has a policy of keeping food cheap" - not sure they do or there wouldn't be tariffs and quotas on food imports to protect [French/Spanish/British/Italian*] Farmers.
*delete as appropriate
But I take your point about the fact that Landowners/Landlords benefit form the subsidies.
B, maybe they do, maybe they don't. That's not really the point - a fall in the price of anything (and prices for most things are falling) will largely go into higher rents.
In fact, a fall in the price of luxury goods us more likely to have that effect than a fall in the price of essentials.
Why do we think so many Tories are remainers? The SM is a regulation game with huge barriers to entry and the CU is a tariff wall - all rather reminiscent of the Corn Laws.
Shiney, I think it is more nuanced than that. The large landowners do well out of cheap food, it's the small farmers and tenants that do badly. As we have the third cheapest food in the world, it seems more likely that the tariffs are protecting the farmers in other EU countries and their removal would have little effect here, so long as standards are upheld.
Mark, I'm pretty sure the Gov't does have a cheap food policy - given the economic might of the supermarkets, it would be very surprising if they didn't. Any sector of commerce with the clout to wangle zero rating for VAT on their major sales items is likely to have the clout to alter government policy, too.
Lola, true dat, but some decades ago the backbone of the Tory party shifted from the big rural landowners to the smaller urban landlords.
Bayard; Lola, true dat, but some decades ago the backbone of the Tory party shifted from the big rural landowners to the smaller urban landlords. a truly unholy alliance...
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