Tractorgate 2? What's it all about?

While Dubliners head out for their lunchtime sandwich today they will see thousands of farmers gathering with placards and megaphones on Government buildings. Also expected on the streets are combine harvesters, tractors and cattle trucks; a reminder of the famous "tractorgate" protest on Dublin in 2003 - IFA's drive to draw attention to difficulties on Irish family farms. Throughout the country today, many dairy co-ops, beef, lamb, pig and poultry processors, grain merchants and marts are also expected to close for business in support of the farmer's action.
Want to know why? Here's a quick guide -

The protest has been organised by the IFA (Irish Farmers Association) who feel that reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will threaten productivity and jobs in the farming and food sector. They feel that farm output will drop and our targets for increased production as laid out in the Government planned "Harvest 2020" programme will be undermined. Currently CAP is being negotiated for its next round and is set for changes in how subsidies are paid to farmers and for what type of farming activities. Payments will be separated from numbers of livestock (headage based) to a more acreage based system, which will benefit some farmers but penalise others. Some observers say it's fairer and more environmentally friendly and has been called the "greening of CAP". Others say it will hamper growth and ultimately make Irish farm incomes smaller.

IFA president John Bryan (right) has accused the agricultural minister Simon Coveney of misleading farmers in the scale of the CAP proposals. He says they will flatten basic payment by 2019 and result in some farmers experiencing income cuts of 50%. The problem is that in negotiating CAP reform, ag ministers throughout Europe have to deal with very varying types of farming, environmental and sustainability issues and look at what consumers can pay as a fair price for food. In recent decades Europe has promoted a cheap food policy whereby farmers are subsidised to produce as consumers couldn't pay the actual price demanded for a kilo of beef for example. If you reduce this subsidy, or move this subsidy more towards an environmental emphasis, the result is that us consumers may have to pay more for food.

Subsidies in many cases are what are keeping many small farms in Ireland in operation. We also have to ask, do we want to keep a family farm model and if we do, what is Europe prepared to pay for this? Or do we want to reward the "leanest" and biggest producers. CAP has a spectrum of roles and needs, for ministers it's a challenge in finding the right balance across the EU and upsetting farm organisations in your own country is part of that process. Everyone wants the best they can get for their region, but from a limited EU budget that's not going to be possible.


The protests today are also designed to send a warning shot across Irish government bows in advance of the budget. The IFA are calling for restraint on further taxing farm families, particularly in an environment where feed costs, fuel costs and inputs are on the rapid rise and those in the white meat sector - pig and poultry producers are seriously under pressure. Already these producers and processors have asked for retail price rises in order to cover their costs. We're in a tricky environment for farming at the moment, but there are those who would say it's never "not tricky" - food and commodity prices are always and possibly increasingly volatile in a global marketplace where hedge funds are also active in influencing price outside of its intrinsic value. Is this just another storm to weather or should Government and the EU be building in more mechanisms of stability in farming and food production? Controls on betting on food prices (have been tabled) and codes of practice to regulate the retail price of food?

lronically today, we will also see an announcement from Kerry Group around the corner from the protests in the Shelbourne hotel on the creation of 900 new jobs at its plant in Naas. The announcement will be attended by the Taoiseach, Taniste and Minister Coveney. Whatever you may think about the timing, this is a fantastic news for employment and shows a thriving dairy export sector. Farming is an activity where you can have one sector thriving and another in ribbons. Perhaps in CAP reform the focus could be more on evening out that volatility and making the yellow brick road a little less twisty.

Would you bet on the price of food if eventually it made you poorer?

Great to read today that Barclays have made £500 million this year from betting on food prices, a practice that has been labelled by observers as "immoral" and "lacking a moral compass". Betting on commodity prices is a major part of the financial trading markets and unfortunately results in making food more expensive for the rest of us.

In the developing world, it can result in even more people starving than at present, and creates uncertainty and pressure on food supplies globally. In Ireland, the hangover from drought in the US, rising grain prices combined with speculative profiteering by commodity traders has had it's own effects. According to the Irish Farmer's Association one third of Irish pig farmers are now close to hitting the wall.

Betting on food prices is a huge driver in the cost of the food, and banks, hedge funds and the like don't give a whit about its knock on effects. In 2008, the exorbitant rise of food prices caused public disorder throughout the developing world and particularly in North Africa. This movement about hunger essentially, and lack of fairness in the food distribution system extended into human rights and became the Arab spring. It felled Colonel Gadaffi in Libya and began the struggle for equality that has lead to the terrible bloodshed now happening in Syria.

I travelled to Lebanon and Syria a few years ago with my husband, not as journalists but as a curious people seeking an inside track on what was going on in these fascinating countries. When I think now of the gorgeous people we stayed with it gives me shivers to think where they might be now. The retired academic who ran a small B and B in Aleppo with a library full of French and English literature and Roman walls propping up the basement. On a rooftop terrace we looked across the dusky skyline of one of the world's most beautiful cities, talked about the Assad regime and how on earth they were going to get rid of him. This fantastic man is surely fled from Syria by now, or else he is dead.

The price of food has always been a driver in political and social change. Land and the resources to grow food on are the primary reason countries go to war. Now more than ever the pressure on fragile world resources in the food chain needs serious attention. We also need to be cogent of a food ownership and distribution system that is deeply inequitable and flawed. Irish farmers are suffering at present as they rely on imported grain and soya to feed livestock and the price of this food has risen to almost twice it's value since the start of this year.

Pigs and poultry who are indoor animals (in the coventional systems) are wholly dependent on cereal food. They are also suffering in the face of cheap imports from the EU and further afield. All of us like a bargain and we're also grocery shopping in more lean times, but asking food producers to grow livestock below the cost of production is something that shouldn't be occurring. On RTE Countrywide on Saturday I joined presenter Damien O'Reilly in examining how critical this problem is. We asked why no mechanism so far seems to able to get the food chain under control and limit its volatility and that knock on effect on farmers and consumers.

Check it out at the link below and ask yourself, is cheap food really the way to go? For all our sakes.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/countrywide/

Hey ho, the supermarkets are at it again

Last week we heard how Ireland has the second highest food and drink prices in the EU. This week it's becoming clearer why. If farmers are barely scraping a living and we're paying way over the odds for our groceries, who exactly is getting the fat in the middle? Eurostat's figures showed that what we pay for food is 29% higher than the EU average. Ireland recorded the highest prices in Europe for dairy produce such as milk and cheese, and despite being the biggest meat exporter in the northern hemisphere - we are still paying the fifth highest meat prices of the 27 countries surveyed.

In an investigation just published, it turns out that the high prices we are paying are the result of multi-national chains abusing their dominant position, poor information on special offers beyond local markets in the EU and the slow growth of e-commerce. The EU commissioner Michel Barnier has just revealed the results of a new study along with the promise to introduce new rules on food retailing in the autumn. Half of all retail in Europe is grocery and is dominated by the big multi-nationals such as Tesco and Carrefour. The report found that prices can vary hugely for products, even for the same product in different outlets that belong to the same supermarket. Barnier's report also found that Ireland is still wrapping its food in huge amounts of expensive packaging, up to six times as much as the lowest member state.

It's always been the case that there has been a disconnect between what food is worth to food producers and what we consumers pay for it. In some cases the contrast is actually offensive to farmers; rendering a unit of production (a beef heifer etc) just not worth rearing by the time you've paid your costs. Many farmers can barely break even, such is the power of the mulitples. Time and time again during the writing of our book and continually still, I am being contacted by farmers who are having terrible treatment at the hands of the multiples, few will give their names as they are terrified of being blacklisted. Especially as summer time is fruit season, it unfortunately coincides with many sad tales from fruit growers. One farmer told me last week how a retailer refused his strawberries even though he had matched the price of their imported product from Chile. Then the supermarket insisted that the farmer collects any unsold product and waste and pays for its disposal. They refused to sell it at a discounted rate, he said they simply couldn't be bothered.

Roll on some proper supermarket ombudsman legislation, transparency of their profit margins, and codes of practise which must insist on fair treatment of producers. I spoke to an Oireactas Committee about this last May, the legislation is in consultation phase, I just hope they get it out into the marketplace to protect both farmers and consumers as quickly as possible.

More at -

The Examiner
http://irishexaminer.ie/ireland/politics/goods-wrapped-in-up-to-six-times-more-packaging-124307.html

Patience Wheatcroft in the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704535004575348944028858252.html