WTO threat to our food supply
The rich industrial nations do not want to open up world trade out of any major altruistic feelings for the poorest of the poor.
Their reasons are twofold.
Firstly, they want to open up markets for banks, insurance, computers, etc.
Secondly, they want cheaper food for their own workers to keep down wages.
When the demand is great enough, the manufacturing will follow the markets. The poor nations will not benefit at all.
Rather they will be worse off. They will have even less chance of competing with countries like Brazil than we have.
What they need is to have a trading bloc of their own; for example, an African union developed on the lines of the old EEC.
If you remember, one of the founding principles of the EEC (now the EU) was that Europe would be self-sustaining, and would never again have to suffer the starvation experienced by millions in the period after World War II.
These underdeveloped countries cannot feed themselves, so why does anybody - including the Catholic Church and the NGOs - think they can suddenly feed Europe?
The outcome of the reduction in tariffs proposed at the WTO meeting will be dramatically to cut food production in Europe, rendering us unable to feed ourselves.
This might be fine from an accountant’s point of view if food could be sourced cheaper elsewhere, but how could anyone, especially the Catholic Church, reconcile the fact that when millions of people are hungry, we should cut food production dramatically in Europe?
The safest food in the world is produced in Europe. Why should we expose our people to food of a lesser quality?
I am talking in particular about avian flu, foot and mouth disease, TB, and who knows what else.
If Europe suffers a major natural disaster or pandemic, where will we get food from?
Even if food is available, rich countries like the USA will buy it, thus leaving the poor countries with even less.
The South American rainforests - ‘the lungs of the world’ - are being cut down at an alarming rate to produce beef, yet we are being told to plant trees here.
For my own part, I would prefer to be eating Irish food and using sustainable timber.
The WTO negotiations commenced this week in Hong Kong, and the Irish agricultural sector has never faced such danger. It may well be virtually eliminated by a stroke of Peter Mandelson’s pen.
Forty years ago Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream.”
Well, today I have a nightmare that Irish beef and lamb will disappear from Irish and European tables and I hope the world wakes up to this before it comes to fruition.
Edmund Phelan
Waterford Chairman
Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA)
9 Lyster House
Lyster Square
Portlaoise
Co Laois
