Farm subsidies used as weapon against developing countries
This is outlandish - as is his attack on the Irish Commission for Justice and Social Affairs for calling for the abolition of all subsidies to farmers. These subsidies are a transfer from the relatively unpropertied taxpaying citizen to a propertied class. As Mr Phelan well knows, those who receive the greatest amounts are also the largest and wealthiest producers.
This, too, is outrageous. He wonders how we can expect poorer countries to export to us when they “cannot feed themselves”.
Surely, he understands that those subsidies retard agricultural development in poorer countries. It is impossible for them to develop while we use subsidies to undercut them at every step. Free trade and fair competition are vital for the development of those counties. Mr Phelan is incorrect in his assertion that we will be unable to feed ourselves when the subsidies disappear. The market will adjust, and farmers will find that prices will rise should the demand for their product outstrip supply, which would in turn encourage production. Basic economics.
Mr Phelan decries those who would cut production in the face of the millions who are hungry. If we are producing so much that it ends up in milk lakes and butter mountains, later to be destroyed, then cutting production would not make the slightest difference to the millions who are hungry.
Worse still, if that produce finds its way onto the world market at prices below which they can compete (thanks to the subsidies which allow us undercut them) we wipe out their agricultural industry. As for being exposed to inferior imported food, I would rather make that decision for myself than have Mr Phelan make it for me.
James McGrath
Birchgrove
Hollyford
Co Tipperary
