Thanx Pete for this. In reading the debates over subsidies to European agriculture I have always felt that it was a subsidy for a way of life, a way of valuing quality over quantity.
arthur -----Original Message----- From: pete [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 6:58 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwk: Re: Community decline On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Ed Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Karen, thanks for the piece on rural decline in the US. Several parts >of agricultural Canada are in no better shape. Increasingly, it does >seem that rural areas are dependent for their income on transfers from >urban/industrial centres, and not on what they can produce themselves. >There remains a mystique about the rural way of life and the family farm, >but even that is beginning to wear thin with the growing recognition that >many farms are probably no longer viable unless they are heavily >subsidized or supported by special marketing arrangements. Ah, I 've been thinking about fitting this comment in, and this seems like a good place: I spent most of the autumn this year at a lab in europe (CERN), and got a chance to get a feel for the day to day culture over there. As I was flying in, I looked over the landscape of France and Germany, on a fortunately clear and sunny day. It was achingly beautiful. Despite the high population density, the population centres were mostly small towns and villages, nestled among farms and woodlots. The property boundaries, even in relatively level ground, were not the rigid squares of north america, but complex patterns reflecting the local features - rivers, hills, old winding roads. Perhaps not the most efficiently utilitarian design, but good for the soul. While staying near Geneva, I had the opportunity to visit a local family for dinner. They have a farm just outside a small village, and I spent some time walking about the area, noting the seamless meshing of the farming activity with the commercial activity of the village; like much of europe, many of the buildings are centuries old, but beautiful and well maintained. The family I was visiting depends on a subsidy to sustain their farm (not the EU subsidy, as this was in Switzerland, but similar). So I thought about the Canadian prairie farmers being driven off their farms by low grain prices (and absense of matching Canadian subsidies), and the loss of the small prairie towns. Then about what will happen to the beautifully tended european countryside and the beautiful villages when subsidies are cut, and only large industrial farms will be economical, like the ones now appearing coincident with the depopulation of the Canadian prairies. Perhaps one of the free trade zealots here can paint me a picture of how the brave new world ahead will be an improvement... -Pete Vincent
