Exploitation of poor continents must stop
The chairman and joint chief executive of Unilever was at an IBEC conference in Dublin that dealt with the evils of regulation from a business perspective.
Their standpoint was self-serving and who can blame them for that? Less rather than more is good due to the huge savings that would accrue to European businesses. Europe is a monster in this case and ought to come closer into line with the US. How we in Europe compare with the US in the regulatory sense was the basic topic of discussion.
Mr FitzGerald wasted no time in getting stuck into the topic of over-regulation and with much justification on the basis of examples given.
No arguments there. However, his blanket assertion that the US was a walking test laboratory vindicating GM foods displayed a total disregard for concerns raised in Europe about the process.
He reasoned GM foods are in the US. No obvious side effects have been shown up and therefore what was all the navel gazing for across Europe. It was nothing more than indulging “phantom fears”. If the GM way was good enough for the US, then it has to be good enough for the rest of the civilised world.
It’s a peculiar and uncritical line of argument, that’s becoming a bit too much of a given in this country.
Uncritical adulation of everything that comes out of the US smacks of sycophancy.
And at the core of the IBEC conference was the value judgment, softly pedaled, that the US is good and Europe is bad. And if the US is doing it, then it has to be alright. What was quite disturbing was that at no point did Mr FitzGerald make any reference to key issues like the balance of nature being disturbed or that where certain crops were used that were resistant to certain pesticides, these migrated to other areas, causing swarming in a GM-free area.
He made no reference either to the fact that two-thirds of all crops in the United States have been affected by the GM process, making organic farming virtually impossible into the future. This is a world first. It is also the case that once in the system the GM process is irreversible.
It is also the case that rogue weeds are emerging in certain areas and these are pesticide resistant.
Perhaps even more disturbing is the overall belief conveyed by most of the speakers that at the end of the day, the US way is the road we all have to travel if we want what’s best for Europe and, indeed, for the world.
It’s too simplistic a view and I thought IBEC aspired to higher standards of debate than what it served up last Monday. In his paper, Mr FitzGerald touched on issues that have global implications that do tend to have a broader consensus.
If the EU and the US stopped subsidising farmers, then a new world trade deal could lift 140 million people above the poverty line.
Farmers had to learn to live with the reality that free markets will sooner, rather than later, become the norm.
In other words, subsidies are no longer acceptable as a means of propping up farm incomes irrespective of the merits of such a scheme.
In that sense, the Unilever boss has hit a core truth about to impact on agriculture right across Europe.
In that instance a basic moral point exists that bluntly put says European and US farmers have been at the front end of keeping poor continents in poverty since its inception.
That may be a bitter pill to swallow, but somehow it is probably more acceptable than the blanket endorsement of the GM case.
The European Union and the US have to stop the blatant exploitation of the poorer continents and allow them a chance to aspire to more than mere subsistence.
