Protecting agriculture

THE PRIME Minister has promised legislation to protect agricultural production by the end of the year. In a speech at the annual Denbigh Show, he said it would be introduced to Parliament next month and would become operative shortly thereafter. However, the Prime Minister made it clear that it would only be a stop-gap affair and was only meant to address emergency threats.

We are aware that farmers have long been clamouring for protective legislation but this is a mere sop which is hardly likely to have any long-term effect. For it to be otherwise the Prime Minister would have had to announce a range of other initiatives, intended to address several factors.

Foremost among these should be farmer training to upgrade their use of technology; improved varieties; appropriate use of fertilisers and agricultural chemicals - all moves designed to enhance production and productivity.

Added to this should be a commitment to market study which would be instructive of not only what to produce, how to reap, handle and distribute, but equally important, when to produce.

Measures to protect farmers are nothing new in the developed countries. In the United States, for example, the mecca of the free market, just recently a measure of protection was extended to dairy farmers. Governments there have been known to offer incentives to milk and butter producers. They have even paid farmers to keep land out of production to sustain prices. Also recently in Britain hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, have been paid to farmers in the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.

Still, we wish to sound a note of warning that if there are not concrete plans to accompany the proposed legislative respite it will be of little avail.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.

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