Study German lessons

THERE are lessons to be learnt from the 25% slump in German farm incomes, which leaves this country’s once prosperous farmers earning €22,900, on average.

There is now a gap of 40% between agricultural and industrial incomes in Germany. And in one year alone, the country has lost more than 10,000 cattle farms.

In Germany’s sluggish economy, farmers, at the bottom of the food chain, have been squeezed out. Floods in 2002, and the summer drought in 2003, hurt also. But farmers’ greatest difficulty is they cannot live with hotter competition in the food industry.