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Opinion Poultry Production
Friday 22 September 2006
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No industry alike
Growing, processing and marketing poultry meat and eggs, like many other
agricultural activities, have become an industrialized process. This allowed
many outside and some inside the business to consider it as a normal economic
activity and should be treated alike.
This opinion has gained support over
the past decades among politicians as well as public opinion groups. In many
countries, the agricultural community seems to accept this and gave away its
unique status and the associated advantages it used to have.
Following the various food
scares, the AI crisis and climate influences
we have seen in recent years several occasions that prove that agriculture, or
better, food production is very much dependent of uncontrollable issues, which
is not the case in most other industrial sectors.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the weather and nothing more dependant of
the weather than agriculture. This makes agriculture, including livestock
production a unique economic activity. It therefore deserves an exclusive status
and treat.
Additionally, no other industry has a bigger responsibility to give food to
the world than agriculture, and this sector does a good job to fulfil that
obligation. It can do that only if the conditions are right and if it receives
the support and backing from the regulators.
Sometimes, following incidents, governments provide for good or wrong reasons
protection, but that is not enough, they should provide enough regulatory space
to maintain competitive on an international level.
It is often said that the world is getting smaller, borders disappear and we
have to operate in one single world market. The reality is that the world
remains huge and complicated, and many countries prefer to protect their
borders, despite WTO.
The use of antibiotics, the introduction of GMO grains, AI and recently NCD outbreaks show that borders still exist to stop
or limit imports for (health, emotional or economic) protective reasons.
This proves a dualism and that agriculture, including livestock production,
is not an economic activity line any other. It is different and should therefore
be part of a long-term national policy to safeguard the production and
availability of sufficient and affordable safe food for all
people.
- Author: Wiebe van der Sluis
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Comments ( 1 )
according to opinion, i am giving a status of industry to agriculture and live stock production. the things(obstacles) you have mentioned in your article, same as faced by the other industries, but the difference is only that others industry are not live. we can say that it is a dead stock industries. In this industry we have faced a problems and we need to solve and overcome these problems immediatelly, we have no more time like the dead stock industry. it is all my comments as i feel. i have give it a name live stock industry.
