BITTERSWEET BREXIT
The Future of Food, Farming, Land & Labour
Following our leave from the EU, we are in for some of the biggest changes in our food and farming for generations - perhaps for over 150 years. Some believe that the world is our oyster and we are going to become a land of milk and honey. Others think the world is now our lobster (to quote George Cole in Minder) and about to bite us back. In terms of subsidies, standards, regulations, imports, exports, tariffs and quotas - all built up over 40 years. We have a lot to lose and not much to gain in terms of where our meals are going to come from for the next generation.This site follows on from the publication of the book 'Bittersweet Brexit; The Future of Food, Farming, Land and Labour', written by Dr Charlie Clutterbuck and published by Pluto Press on Oct 16 World Food Day 2017. OpenDemocracy included Bittersweet Brexit in their 'Best political books of 2017. This site carries on the many debates set up in the book, and includes the book's index, to give you a bit more idea.
BITTERSWEET BREXIT
The book proposes a series of positive actions we can take to promote a redder/greener approach to our food and farming. To start we need to replace the EU CAP subsidies - worth around £3+Billion with something that gets to ordinary people -as in USA. At present these go to landowners - for owning the land, rather than doing anything with it.
At the same time, consumers want cheaper food - and this costs the earth. To continue cheap food but provide better conditions and better environmental impact, we could use those CAP funds to fund workers instead. It could pay 300,000 permanent workers an extra £10,000 each - making a living wage.
The longer aim is to reduce the amount of food imported - nearly half of what we eat. Most comes from the EU, so imports are likely to cost more with border controls. If we reduce food imports by half we could pay ourselves $33 billion. Imagine what we could do with that sort of money for our rural economies and for our social care. More more Look at the land
THIS SITE
To search the site, click the magnifying icon, top right. Most of this site is my description of what is happening. When I want to make a clear comment, it is in italics.
Bittersweet Brexit Charlie Clutterbuck in University of Chicago Press Economics Books from University of Chicago Press
Abstract: The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was originally designed in 1962 to build an integrated agricultural market through subsidies, the removal of tariffs, and other programs of financial intervention. Though reformed many times over the past five decades, the CAP has been widely criticized for its high cost and uneven distribution of benefits as well as for its environmental and humanitarian impacts. But in Britain, in spite of its shortcomings, the CAP did at least afford farmers a degree of financial and structural support. Post-Brexit, that support will vanish, to be replaced by a woefully misconceived agricultural export drive. Bittersweet Brexit dissects the problems of the post-CAP plan and proposes a simple yet impactful solution: paying workers decent wages. A leading expert on agribusiness, Charlie Clutterbuck argues that increasing wages for laborers in the agricultural sector would radically transform the nature of farming in Britain—increasing sustainability, improving yields, and ensuring greater self-sufficiency at a time when food security is gravely imperiled. This timely book calls for a progressive future for food and farming in Britain, and will prove illuminating to students of environmental studies and policy makers alike.
Date: 2017 Edition: 1 ISBN: 9780745337715 References: Add references at CitEc Citations: Track citations by RSS feed