Home > Press releases > 2002
20 Sep 2002
Organisers of the 'Liberty and Livelihood March' are ignoring the real threats to the countryside Friends of the Earth said today. The Countryside Alliance leadership seems more concerned about defending hunting than about more important threats to farming and rural life.
Currently farm incomes are at rock bottom because of the strength of
the pound, the effects of the destructive Common Agricultural Policy
and the “globalizing” trend for supermarkets and food manufacturers
to source the cheapest food possible from around the world. Farm gate
prices in many sectors are close to or below the cost of production.
But supermarket profits continue to soar and the large retailers and
food manufacturers expand their control and influence. Rural services
from affordable housing to shops to doctors to buses are in decline.
Development in the form of new roads, airports and urban expansion also
threaten the rural environment and take land out of production.
All three major political parties make sympathetic noises about the
plight of farmers. But all also favour “free trade” in farm
produce, implying cheap imports of food that should be locally and sustainably
produced. FOE has called for the World Trade Organisation’s Agricultural
Agreement, which is driving the liberalisation of farm trade, to be
scrapped and replaced by an international agreement that reflects the
wider importance of agriculture to society and the need to protect the
environment.
Charles Secrett, Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, commented:
“The Countryside Alliance spends way too
much time worrying about hunting, and not nearly enough
working on the major threats to rural life. Thousands
of farmers will be driven out of business unless our politicians
recognise the need to invest in rural areas to create new local markets
for quality farm produce and encourage environmentally
friendly land management. Unless town and country unite
to demand a new system of sustainable food production,
the next Countryside March may find there are very
few farmers left to mobilise”.
Friends of the Earth briefing Get
Real About Food and Farming (PDF
format 819K) is available on request.
†To view PDF files you will need to download
Adobe Acrobat Reader. Visually impaired users can get extra help with these
documents from access.adobe.com.
Contact details:
Friends of the Earth
26-28 Underwood St.
LONDON
N1 7JQ
Tel: 020 7490 1555
Fax: 020 7490 0881
Web: www.foe.co.uk/feedback.html
Media team
