davidmc said:Agree. I heard the same argument on "The Prime Minister's Question Time" the other day. They are at a disadcantage because of our subsidies & superior technology of our farming industry. If we want to give them an equal chance, we need to level the playing field.
You hit on a very valid point.
When the Treaty of Rome was enacted in 1957, the idea was to tty to bring commonality to Europe and to ensure that peace was maintained.
It also spawned the EEC (known now as the EU).
The EEC was premised upon the idea that common trade and a free market might operate throughout Europe - which would help to underpin the peace concept.
All fine and dandy.
Except that the only real policy of commonality was the Common Agricultural
Policy : this is the only real trans-European policy that has been enacted since the Treaty of Rome.
One by-product of CAP, is that farmers throughout Europe prospered to the detriment of farmers in countries outside of Europe.
The CAP policy is one of the most unethical, wasteful - and in world of hunger - the most inhumane policy ever.
Farmers were guaranteed income for produce that was never consumed.
Subsidies were paid to farmers for produce that went straight to large warehouse.
You had butter mountains in storage, wine lakes, spud mountains, sugar hills.
In a world with people starving, there were (are) bonded warehouses all over Europe stuffed with agricultural produce that would never be consumed.
And not only that, farmers outside of Europe could not compete with produce prices here in Europe : so sugar from Malawi had no chance of being imported to Europe.
So Dave you are correct - vested interests in this part of the world played their part in the depriving struggling economies of Africa.