Socialist Action /April 2001
Britain's Farms in Crisis
In response to foot and mouth disease, the Labour
Party government has ordered the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of farm
animals.
What measures do socialists propose to solve
this unprecedented disaster? Below is an editorial from Socialist Outlook,
a monthly newspaper published by the British section of the Fourth International.
The countryside is under siege, and thousands of
animals are being slaughtered and burned, as the foot and mouth outbreak
spreads inexorably further across Britain.
The restrictions on movement of people and animals
have effectively forced Prime Minister Tony Blair to scrap the option of
a snap election in April, and helped to undermine the desired "feel
good factor" which was supposed to be created by a relatively generous
budget as part of Labour's preelection preparation.
This latest blow to the dwindling number of British
farmers and to rural communities comes after a succession of food safety
scares, and a collapse in the market price of pigs, sheep, and cattle.
This had brought a crisis even before the first
outbreak of foot and mouth was confirmed. Figures for last year show average
farm incomes in Wales have fallen to just over £4800, and in Scotland
to just £3800.
This helps underline the fact that the once rich
pickings of EU subsidies are just a fond memory for many small and medium-sized
farms. This dire financial situation, with farm prices hammered ever lower
by the monopoly purchasing power of a handful of profiteering supermarkets,
has led to an exodus from farming and a frightening rate of suicide among
farmers.
Against this background, the hollow claim of the
so-called Countryside Alliance to represent the needs and demands of the
rural population has been starkly exposed.
The protest march they had threatened to mobilize
on London later this month-and which has now been postponed because of the
foot and mouth epidemic-had nothing to do with the plight of small farmers,
their low-paid workforce, the closure of village shops and post offices,
or the absence of public transport or other key services in rural areas.
It was purely and simply against the abolition of fox-hunting, a pursuit
cherished by the rural rich.
Polarization between rich and poor
The countryside has become a reservoir of low pay,
under-employment, and deprivation for working families. The closures of
coal mining and many other traditional industries have also left large pockets
of working-class communities living in "rural" areas, facing long
journeys if they are to find work in urban areas.
But for the wealthy, with their large houses, holiday
homes, leisure pursuits, and four-wheel drives, the countryside remains
a playground. The polarization between rural rich and rural poor has widened
with the privatization of bus services and the collapse of much of the rural
economy.
And as the squeeze tightens on agriculture, it
is only the biggest farms which have the reserves and the margins to ride
out the rough times and wait for a future return to profitability. Yet the
domination of agriculture by these big farms, linked in with the development
of agribusiness at national and international level, has been a factor in
the eruption and spread of foot and mouth disease.
The new pattern of farming and food production
involves the routine transport of countless thousands of live animals from
one end of Britain to the other. Many are now taken huge distances for slaughter
in the reduced number of larger abattoirs [slaughter houses], following
on the closure of much of the network of smaller more local abattoirs in
order to cut costs.
Not only are there issues here of animal welfare,
arising from the vast increase in avoidable distress and suffering to those
animals that are shipped in crowded trailers, but the system appears designed
to maximize the risk that a health problem in one area can rapidly spread
to other areas throughout the country-especially if it is a disease as infectious
as foot and mouth.
But there has also been a massive increase in the
export of live animals to Europe and beyond: numbers of animals shipped
across the Channel have increased more than four fold since the big protests
against the trade in veal calves highlighted the issue a few years ago.
At the same time, the global market in food stuffs and the constant search
of the supermarkets and food processors for the cheapest possible supplies
have led to a rising tide of imported meat from countries around the world,
some of which have been wrestling with declared or undeclared outbreaks
of foot and mouth.
Tony Blair's New Labour government has become one
of the leading proponents of the virtues of the global economy and the free
market system. Under Labour, the supermarkets have continued to reign supreme,
pocketing billions in profits while squeezing food producers at home and
abroad to the point of bankruptcy.
Now it is not just the rural population that is
paying the price: the real cost of "cheap food" has repeatedly
been exposed, and even Blair himself has been forced to question the "stranglehold"
of the supermarkets.
Why should socialists and the workers movement
care about these issues? Last autumn's fuel tax protests helped point to
the disaffection of important sections of the middle classes-the "petty
bourgeoisie," small producers, self-employed lorry drivers, and small
farmers.
Socialist Outlook argued then that the labor movement
should not ignore the problems these people were rising, but take on and
fight for progressive policies that could tackle them.
We pointed out the lesson of history that sections
of the petty bourgeoisie can easily turn towards the reactionary right if
they see no positive response from the left. The same is true of the rural
poor and the small farmers facing ruin in the current crisis.
Along with the Socialist Alliance [a coalition
of parties that is running candidates throughout the country], we call for
policies that address the underlying problems in the countryside, which
in most cases flow from the operation of New Labour's new-found business
friends-the banks, agribusiness, and the supermarkets.
Our alternative platform includes:
- Big grants for small farmers to switch to organic
production, where margins are higher and food is healthier.
- Incentives for small farmers to form more cooperatives
(as some are already doing) to share and reduce their costs and negotiate
collectively with retailers and food process companies.
- Incentives to reduce the transport and import
of food that can be grown locally, thus reducing road traffic, pollution,
and threats to animal welfare.
- Prosecute-and nationalize-the feed manufacturers
whose use of animal protein triggered the BSE crisis, but who have never
paid even a penny in compensation for the damage done.
- A steeply progressive turnover tax on multinational
agribusiness and supermarkets.
- Step up the regulation and inspection of health
and safety procedures at all levels of agricultural production and food
processing.
- A big increase in the minimum wage.
- Slash taxes on fuel, but impose a windfall tax
on the oil companies, which have been creaming billions from rising crude
oil prices.
- Investment in cheap, efficient, and widespread
publicly-owned rural transport services, using buses and rail.
- Investment in active and diverse rural communities-including
community facilities, youth clubs, schools, and environmental projects.
Socialist Action /April 2001 |