The UK farming crisis

Back in 2004, the watchdog Corporate Watch UK published a report "A Rough Guide to the UK Farming Crisis" which shows the crisis facing UK farmers, in particular small and family farmers, and the role that multinational corporations including big supermarkets and big agribusiness, government policy, and globalisation have all played in this crisis.  Corporate Watch also suggests possible solutions.

About the report

The report "A Rough Guide to the UK Farming Crisis" argues that the root of the UK farming crisis is food and agriculture policies, and of course global trade agreements promoting trade liberalisation, which have concentrated power in the hands of only a few supermarkets and multinational food corporations. At the same time whatever the UK customer buys in the supermarket, very little of what they pay goes to the farmers.

The report also gives its most important conclusion which is that farmers, environmentalists, and social justice advocates need to work together towards transforming the conventional damaging and exploitative food system, and creating food production based on respect for the land and local community needs, and which is sustainable. One of the points worthy of note is that the report explains why small farms are better compared to big farms.

As well as this, the report also notes some possible solutions for rebalancing power away from multinational corporations:

Food sovereignty or food democracy

Via Campesina, an international movement for small farmers, proposes that neoliberal economic policies should be replaced with a more democratic approach to agriculture and food supply, with the principle that people, communities, and countries have the right to control their own agriculture and food systems.

Remove food and agriculture from international trade agreements

Via Campesina, and many other farming organisations and NGOs, form part of a growing lobby which argues that neo-liberal trade agreements such as the GATT (General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs) should not apply to food and agriculture. This lobby says there is a clash of economic models, and that the dominant model is based on "liberalising" agricultural markets and export-oriented industrial agriculture runs contrary to food sovereignty, and creation of participatory, sustainable, and locally controlled food systems.

Dismantling corporate power

Corporations have acquired a huge amount of power, and have even acquired legal rights (including being regarded as equal to a person), and at the same time very few responsibilities. Big corporations used their power to privatise decision making about who controls the food system and how it operates, and corporations are required by the law to act in the best interests of their shareholders, hence profit is the main concern, and corporate lobbying follows the same rule of pursuing ever higher profits, and as a result wish to ensure their interests in profits override the concerns of farmers, workers, consumers, etc.

One suggestion is that legal reform which transfers control of a corporation's actions from the shareholders to the people affected by the corporation's actions (workers, local communities, customers, etc) would remove the idea of profit as a separate interest group of profit, and open the way to a more sustainable and democratic food system. Another suggestion is that removing corporate personhood rights, and imposing full legal responsibilities for corporations' actions. It is suggested that these are needed to ensure that true food democracy is possible.

Also discussed are new rules for food corporations, supply and demand, dismantling monopoly power, and curbing the power of the supermarkets.

Creating new food networks

Creation of new food networks which operate outside the corporate controlled food system has already started. Re-localising the food supply, in which local produce is favoured.

What can be sensibly produced within a nation or region should be.Colin Hines, Co-Director of Finance for the Future

Proponents of localisation say localising the food supply will give farmers a greater share of the money spent on food, provide communities with affordable, healthy food, increase environmental protection, improve livelihoods, and revitalise local communities.

Co-operatives and producer groups have been used for many years by farmers, to increase their bargaining power in order to demand fairer trade and a better price. Co-operatives can continue to be used, but there is only so much co-operatives can do given the power that big supermarkets and agribusiness have, financial and lobbying. However, co-operative ways of working do have many benefits for farmers, retailers and consumers working to create a more participatory and democratic community-based food system.

Indeed, community-based food networks are also being developed, which support locally adapted, environmentally friendly, sustainable, and socially responsible farming. They provide healthy, affordable, nutritious food and increase co-operation and build more direct links between producers and consumers. There are many different methods to achieve this including farmers markets, producer groups, growers co-operatives, food co-operatives and community supported agriculture.

Of course, supermarkets dominate our buying habits, and are associated with choice, convenience, and low prices, which does not make it easy for people to see how they can switch to ecologically sound buying habits. As well as that supermarkets in the UK have responded to consumer demand, including GM-free, organic, fair trade, and in some cases local produce, any niche where the supermarkets see a profit.

However, for all of us consumers, it is argued that there needs to be a shift in our relationship with the food system, from passive consumers to responsible citizens; ready to make informed choices, prepared to bypass brands in supermarkets and to enter into more ecologically and socially responsible direct buying arrangements with farmers and small suppliers, through farmers markets, farm shops, box schemes, local shops, food cooperatives, and so on.

Movement building

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) of the UK has been criticised as representing only the interests of the big farmers and the food industry, and failing to represent the interest of small and family farmers. There are many organisations who represent small and family farmers in the UK, including the Farmers' Union of Wales, Family Farmers Association, Small Farms Association, Small and Family Farms Alliance, Tenant Farmers Association, Farmers for Action and FARM, who are starting to develop a more radical analysis of the causes of the farming crisis. It is suggested that the best way forward is for these organisations to find their common ground and form an alliance that will create a powerful rallying point for disaffected farmers.

Farmers around the world are fighting back. Small farmers from the Philippines and Brazil to France and Canada are mobilising to fight for their survival and are at the forefront of the movement against economic globalisation and trade liberalisation. A common analysis of the causes of the global crisis in farming are forming among farmers worldwide, not just in the industrialised world, which is helping to increase farmers' power and create a focus for building a stronger movement.

The chances of farmers gaining sufficient power to overturn the might of the multinational food corporations on their own is slim, especially in industrialised countries where farmer numbers are shrinking. It is suggested that the future lies in forming an alliance between farmers, farmworkers, activists in the environmental and social justice movement, food industry workers and consumers, who share a common analysis of the causes of the farming crisis and are ready to work together to create systemic change and take back control of our food and agriculture systems.

Read Corporate Watch's report "A rough guide to the farming crisis" in full here.

Resources and further information

• Corporate Watch
• A rough guide to the farming crisis (online article)
• A rough guide to the farming crisis (downloadable PDF)
• Agribusiness Accountability Initiative (AAI)
• Coordination Paysanne Européenne (CPE)
• Family Farmers Association
• FARM: The independent voice for farmers
• Farmers for action
• Farmers' Union of Wales
• Food Commission
• F3 - Foundation for Local Food Initiatives / FLAIR project
• Friends of the Earth
• Grassroots Action on Food and Farming
• Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
• International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC)
• National Family Farms Coalition
• National Farmers' Union (Canada) 
• Small and Family Farms Alliance
• Small Farms Assocation
• Soil Association
• Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming
• Tenant Farmers Association
• Via Campesina