Agribusiness competition between the US and the EU 1

[wildhobo]

A lot of ink has recently been spent in attacking or defending the conflicts between the policies of the EU and those of the US vis-à-vis agricultural products of the US. What are the real underlying factors affecting the resolution of these conflicts ?

 

[DanCo9]

Forgive the length, I talk too much on a tangent, but some thoughts influenced by Wendell Berry....<br><br>First, Agribusiness is an oxymoron.  Agri meaning 'land' and business meaning business.  Agriculture is life based on the care of the land.  Business has always been the exploitation of something for profit.  Caring for the land can only mean to put back into the land at least an equal amount that was taken out.   The Europeans and U.S., and any other country should only be producing what it takes to feed their own sustainable numbers of people.  Not trying to suck the life out of the land in order to "trade" for trinkets and political power.  In other words, food should not be used as either a political arm, nor as a weapon, since is a part of our bodies.  Each person should have some connection with the growing of their food in order to understand that it is not just another trinket to trade away without considering the effects of exploitation on the future quality of that food.  Generally, we have become accustomed to food that is grown thousands of miles away from our homes, and as long as we pay money to the 'government', we think we are absolved of the responsibility for our food quality and safety.  The 'experts' now decide what is good for us, and what is not.  This specialization has allowed the production of surplus food (which is apparently not necessary, since we have to strong-arm each other to buy food in the political arena).  The trading of food ideally should only be done between grower and consumer, not through disconnected political taxers and efficiency experts.  The conflict is based on an idea that we must trade food with each other.  Yes, there are some foods that we would like to trade for, but most of the posturing has been caused by overproduction, then political pressure to prop up internal farm 'economies'.  This is all based on an assumption that the land provides infinite resources to produce the food.  Much of the food produced is produced on chemical fertilizers which are imported from somewhere else.  All of this wasteful overproduction is justified by the 'need' to feed the world.  However, very little of the surplus food ends up in the bellies of people who are starving.  Much of it ends up is storage, and when storage areas are filled, new science is created to turn it into fuel, or plastics, rather than getting it to the mouths that need it.  On top of all this shuffling is the transportation costs and fuel use.  As long as individuals allow the politicos to continue to subsidize overproduction, agri'business', and university graft, the trade wars will continue.  It comes down to the comforts of living with easy access to food.  As long as there is easy access to a thing, it is not important enough for us(individuals) to monitor it.  When it is scarce, however, it becomes the most important thing.  We have an abundance of food produced by modern technology which is grown on borrowed time.  The borrowed time is the millions of years it takes to build the soil it grows in.  We have a percieved shortage of wealth (trinkets, shiny noisy crap) that advertising and marketing show we can get merely for the trade of some valuable resource (labor, metals, easy food).  There will be no advertising to tell us to live simpler, take care of our own garden with our own hands.  The current world culture is based on 'using' the world to gain some monetary advantage, and then buying absolution from sin by giving that money to 'causes' which purport to 'save' the world from exploitation.