New Zealand method shows that the grass can be greener

PUT in its starkest terms, the radical proposals of farm commissioner Franz Fischler will boil down to the survival of the fittest in the long run.

It seems a crude mechanism for dealing with the very important issue of food production within the European context.

But the problem has been simmering for years. Ever since we joined the EU farm, numbers have fallen dramatically as the weaker were squeezed out while the subsidies were skewed to favour the strong.