In 1996, the APEC summit of leaders was held in Subic. As in Osaka the year before, agriculture became an issue to palm off to study committees, not to finally resolve.
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"Crunch Time," The Evening Paper
Issue of 17 July 1996
Many APEC officials, including Filipinos in the organizing committees of the regional trade forum, have publicly shrugged off the agriculture issue--the most contentious issue and the one that host Japan at last year's Osaka summit tried to skim--as "a political issue." I have been told by at least one local APEC official that the issue will surely be raised again at Subic in November, but that the World Trade Organization has already ruled on it.
I presume the policy pronouncement can only mean that the lines on agriculture have long been drawn, and all the emotion that is being squeezed from the issue will not succeed in twisting the world's straight and narrow path.
The Philippines, after all, is already toeing the line.
******
But in Europe, laws and policies are not making the farmers' plight any easier on bureaucrats and politicians who see only too clearly the heartache that global trade can bring on even the most dedicated farmers.
Expenditures for agriculture, mainly in the form of subsidies to protect the incomes of European farmers from price fluctuations, already eat up half of the European Union's $111-billion budget. In effect, it is now the most expensive item on the EU budget.
How long will it remain so? Unless a miracle happens, perhaps forever. Global trade is going to flood all markets with cheap food products from everywhere else, depressing all food prices. Even if farmers all over the world go on a productivity binge, the consequences can be tragic. You may outproduce every other farmer, but will your market be there?
Review and reform of the Common Agricultural Program are a priority on the EU agenda. The European Commission would like nothing more than to altogether cross out farm subsidies from its agricultural support program.
But that is a dream that will require massive structural corrections. Governments will have to do what they have ordinarily surrendered, and happily so, to the wisdom of market forces. Who could have foreseen that before most of the world's farmers could get themselves ready, world markets would require them to fight tooth and nail for survival?
The real world of agriculture will have to go through its crucifixion before it can even dream of the ideal benefits of global farm trade. All the way down the line, farm-sector restructuring wll have to be undertaken--and fast. Sizes of farms will have to be assessed on the bases of efficiency and economy of scale. What products shall be grown, and where shall they be most cost-effective to grow?
The foundations of agro-industry will have to be laid where there were none before. Marketing systems will have to be reviewed and dismantled where they are not economical and functioning. Access to credit will have to be provided and farmers encouraged to take advantage of it.
A whole new way of thinking and operating--one that gives priority to preparing finished products for the market rather than simply supplying raw materials--will have to be fostered among farmers, never an easy job to do with people whose love is for the land, not for business or industry.
But all the above are not meant to prove the process impossible: only that it will take time, money, and hard work for everybody, governments and farmers alike.
Expenditures for agriculture, mainly in the form of subsidies to protect the incomes of European farmers from price fluctuations, already eat up half of the European Union's $111-billion budget. In effect, it is now the most expensive item on the EU budget.
How long will it remain so? Unless a miracle happens, perhaps forever. Global trade is going to flood all markets with cheap food products from everywhere else, depressing all food prices. Even if farmers all over the world go on a productivity binge, the consequences can be tragic. You may outproduce every other farmer, but will your market be there?
Review and reform of the Common Agricultural Program are a priority on the EU agenda. The European Commission would like nothing more than to altogether cross out farm subsidies from its agricultural support program.
But that is a dream that will require massive structural corrections. Governments will have to do what they have ordinarily surrendered, and happily so, to the wisdom of market forces. Who could have foreseen that before most of the world's farmers could get themselves ready, world markets would require them to fight tooth and nail for survival?
The real world of agriculture will have to go through its crucifixion before it can even dream of the ideal benefits of global farm trade. All the way down the line, farm-sector restructuring wll have to be undertaken--and fast. Sizes of farms will have to be assessed on the bases of efficiency and economy of scale. What products shall be grown, and where shall they be most cost-effective to grow?
The foundations of agro-industry will have to be laid where there were none before. Marketing systems will have to be reviewed and dismantled where they are not economical and functioning. Access to credit will have to be provided and farmers encouraged to take advantage of it.
A whole new way of thinking and operating--one that gives priority to preparing finished products for the market rather than simply supplying raw materials--will have to be fostered among farmers, never an easy job to do with people whose love is for the land, not for business or industry.
But all the above are not meant to prove the process impossible: only that it will take time, money, and hard work for everybody, governments and farmers alike.
******
Somebody like Eugeniusz Hamrol from, of all countries, Poland, proves it can be done. This is one farmer from a former communist country who drives a BMW, carries a mobile phone, wears a photographer's vest, manages a 71-hectare farm, and is not so much farmer as businessman.
His farm is equipped with a US-manufactured food supply system, a Dutch-built heating plant, ventilation and water systems, all computer-run. He is on a continuous educational binge, familiarizing himself with any subject even remotely connected to farming: breeding, mechanics, veterinary medicine, economics, marketing, feeding.
Hamrol not only raises chickens, he also grows his own grain for chicken feed and slaughters his chickens. He does not just supply raw, live chickens. If he did, he would not survive in the market.
His farm is the right size, and it is efficient, growing, self-sufficient. Global trade or not, he is the kind of farmer who is not happy being just a farmer. Already, he is talking about services. It is the future, he told Associated Press writer Jeffrey Ulbrich. He thinks it is what will provide jobs, including jobs for farmers whose farms are on the short list for extinction--farmers with too-small, inefficient, expensive operations.
Or those who don't know how to make their farms efficient, self-sufficient, and productive.
His farm is equipped with a US-manufactured food supply system, a Dutch-built heating plant, ventilation and water systems, all computer-run. He is on a continuous educational binge, familiarizing himself with any subject even remotely connected to farming: breeding, mechanics, veterinary medicine, economics, marketing, feeding.
Hamrol not only raises chickens, he also grows his own grain for chicken feed and slaughters his chickens. He does not just supply raw, live chickens. If he did, he would not survive in the market.
His farm is the right size, and it is efficient, growing, self-sufficient. Global trade or not, he is the kind of farmer who is not happy being just a farmer. Already, he is talking about services. It is the future, he told Associated Press writer Jeffrey Ulbrich. He thinks it is what will provide jobs, including jobs for farmers whose farms are on the short list for extinction--farmers with too-small, inefficient, expensive operations.
Or those who don't know how to make their farms efficient, self-sufficient, and productive.
-- NBT
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