NSW North Coast Farmer and activist Ian Mott (pictured) writes: (Opinion)
The moralising on the supposed evils of converting grain to biofuel and pushing food prices to record levels in a soon to be hungry world has only just begun.
It has been described as nothing less than a “crime against humanity” by United Nations (UN) expert, Jean Ziegler and these sentiments were also echoed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The only thing missing were the “four horsemen of the apocalypse”, but give them time, they are only just warming up yet.
Just be sure to take it all with a grain of salt because that is a narrow minority urban view. Afterall, the majority of the world’s population are still farmers. And under the principles of universal sufferage and one vote one value, it is the farmers perspective of high food prices that should, but rarely does, prevail over the bleatings of minority urban panic merchants. Read entire article Here
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Thanks Ian for some commonn sense and balance. If only the media would lift this view to a higher profile. For years we have been battling low returns, only to see slightly higher prices cause higher production and while just the possibility of profits is in the air you would think we had deliberately manipulated the situation …any way, I do not believe significantly higher real prices will stay for long as we have significant production capacity unused and all that is needed to cause production to ocure is a profitable price…It is the correct response to poor returns to reduce production, to higher prices higher production…this is the market doing its best. The free markerters would say “there is no better solution for low prices than low prices” thanks again. Rowell Walton
Thanks Ian for your article,
I’ve often wondered what people in the cities will do when they ban rural enterprises (with legislation and mis-informed media hype) from producing anything or any forms of food.
I for one, grew up planting, raising chooks and producing food and have enough area to do so for my family .
I wonder how these people living in “caffe-latte” inner city apartments who dine out 5 nights a week will cope with having to pay a kings ransom for food to keep themselves alive, or low-and-behold…they have to grow their own. Scenic balconies with city-views just won’t cut it, it terms of having enough room to grow food to sustain themselves! Of course it will impossible with their negative stance on irrigation to grow anything anyway…..couldn’t possibly use water for anything other than swimming pools and spas.
As with the cycle of life….nature will sort itself out. The trajectory of human population growth and urbanization always was going to correct itself somewhere along the time line, maybe we’ll see it in our lifetime, maybe we won’t. The contribution that we all make to this earth leaves a footprint either collectively in the cities, with all their air-conditioners or as individual graziers in the country,with our methane producing cows. Lets hope things sort themselves out before the fanatics get to the point of annihlating all the cattle on earth to stop methane production, and banning cropping due to use of water and fear of erosion.
Common sense will eventually prevail, it would be nice if it happened before those manically green humans, indeed make us all extinct!!!
Cheers and thanks for the thought provoking reading,
Natalie Williams
Thanks, Rowell and Natalie,
It is surprising how the urban community are all in favour of market forces when they deliver low prices to themselves but then view the same market forces that deliver higher prices as some sort of “market failure”.
There seems to be general agreement that the low oil and energy prices of the 20th century did not reflect the real value of that resource. And it follows that the food produced with that cheap energy, and all the steel and components in the machinery that produced that food, were also significantly undervalued. This undervaluation of food was exacerbated by what is now clearly observed to be a temporary absence of “energy” from the demand equation for agricultural output.
It is no longer a question of whether things will change to the benefit of farmers because they have already changed. The only question is how long it will take for the urban community’s brains to catch up with their stomachs. More importantly, farmers all over the world need to stop accepting the metrocentric perspective as the one true take on reality. It is not as if they have distinguished themselves as managers of even their own circumstances, let alone of global destiny.