To all those who believe that first-world farming cannot survive without the theft of subsidies, please then explain how New Zealand seems to manage with hardly any help from the state.
I second the suggestion by Ross Clark in The Spectator… let’s have a buy-cott of New Zealand’s theft-free farm produce: the Kiwis puts British, European and North American agriculture to shame.
New Zealand isn’t Number 3 for nothing.
Australia is similarly placed
NZ farming was desubsidized by a Labour government. It implemented right of Thatcher policies, known as Rogernomics. It had policies like “level playing fields” so the sheep could do their thing without social welfare. Then we had ten years of a brilliant conservative government, headed by Mr Bolger, oddly enough, a farmer! And now the invincible Helen Clark rules New Middle Earth with an iron skirt and very sensible shoes.
And what is even more impressive is that farmers in New Zealand (and generally in Australia too, although Australia is not quite as pure) have been converted to the cause of free trade and the elimination of subsidies. That is, they spend their time complaining about the subsidies given to farmers in other countries rather than demanding that the local government do something for them.
Not only do they beat us, but they do it being on this little island miles from anywhere! Imagine what their transportation costs to market must be…