Maybe it's because as a 'society' we expect and demand cheap food, and
therefore bear partial moral responsibility for it. Plus, whatever the
rights and wrongs, the welfare of a large number of families is at stake,
which is concern for both humanitarain reasons and the small matter of
social order (fuel protests, anyone?). Plus, the analogy you draw with the
bus company...just think of it in terms of the govenment's subsidies to
railtrack...
At 08:32 AM 2/28/01 +0000, you wrote:
>Imagine you ran a dodgy bus company. You offer very cheap fares
>and frequent services, because all your buses have dodgy tyres, no
>insurance, inexperienced drivers etc etc. You use cheap fuel, so
>that your buses keep breaking down. After a while your safety
>record is so bad that despite your cheap fares no-one will use you.
>In fact several people have died in accidents due to the state of
>your buses, reckless driving by your drivers, and their novel,
>experimental, anti-highway code driving. In fact you are broke, and
>have a fleet of useless broken down buses. What you are now
>entitled to is compensation from the Ministry of Transport. No?
>Well since farmers began feeding bits of dead animals to
>herbivores (sheep and cows), keeping animals inside cramped
>crowded buildiongs, not what they were designed for, stuffing them
>full of antibiotics and athoer artificial chemicals, ditto the (GM)
>crops - all in the name of cheap, plentiful food (the Western World
>has an obesity problem, not a lot of this surplus gets to the
>starving South, but thats bot the farmers concern) we have had one
>farming crisis after another. And a few fatalities (CJD). Some of the
>crisis is external, the high £, price lowering by the supermarkets,
>etc, but a lot is due to farming methods. Sp why compensdation. It
>surely can't be because the farmers are the "guardians of the
>conutryside" as, prarie-factory farming in Lincolnshire aside, much
>farmland is in a very artificial state. "Disease free" farms restrict
>access by ramblers, in case some evil walker brings in some
>bacterium which the poor delicate chemical-stressed flock can't
>cope with. Farmers go bust and the countryside returns to a state
>of wilderness? Loss of rural employment? Farms have already shed
>many jobs, many villages are inhabited largely by wealthy
>commuters, and I guess a return to a bit of natural wildlife wouldn't
>go amiss in the very artificial state the rural parts of much of Britain
>is in.
>Hillary Shaw, P/G Geography, University of Leeds
>
>
Graham Gardner
Institute of Geography & Earth Sciences
University of Wales
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 3DB
Wales
UK
Tel: 0044 (0)1970 622606
Fax: 0044 (0)1970 622659
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
|