Urban ignorance
From C.H. Williams Sir: Tempting though it is simply to toss Ross Clark on the nearest Maff funeral pyre, his call for market forces (Toot and mouth and self-pity', 17 March) in agriculture is not without merit. However, it is the consumer, not the producer, who is receiving the real subsidy.
Since the second world war, Western Europe has insisted on cheap food for all as a non-negotiable right. There are two ways to achieve this. Firstly, buy from people so backward that they think Tesco is a country, and who earn less in a year than a journalist spends on lunch. These 'happy-golucky' chaps will starve if you suddenly withdraw your custom, so you can name your own terms and, if they behave, you might toss a bit back via Comic Relief.
Secondly, your supermarkets use similar economic racketeering on your own farmers. Irritatingly, this lot have votes and you have to bung them a bit from the public purse so they don't park their tractors across the motorway. Just two to three Domes' worth should be enough, even in a bad year. There is a certain cosiness to this set-up: a well-fed electorate is a happy one, the supermarkets make a bundle and can express their gratitude in 'political donations'.
Farmers infinitely prefer the dignity of earning their money rather than living on handouts, so let's sell food for what it's actually worth and really give the townies something to whinge about.
C.H. Williams
Sir: Mr Clark is an urban economist. It offends him that any human activity should not fit neatly into his concepts of value and profit, and he chooses to vent his irritation by insulting the farmers in the midst of this tragic outbreak of foot-and-mouth. He has neither sympathy nor understanding — and he never will have. For by his words he is identified as 'urban man', a new and dominating evolution of the species, defined as without any true contact with the natural world.
The inevitable casualties are the standards and rhythms of life on the land and in the countryside, and thus the erosion of stability within the state. The signs are all there.
Stephen Hastings
Peterborough London SW9
From Sir Stephen Hastings
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