The EU's Enlargement Commissioner, Marta Kos, had already said, "We have to protect the farmers in the EU, and we are already discussing this subject with Ukraine."

All rightwing fascists are basically the same, it is exhaustingly monotone.

  • Barley_Man@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    2·
    22 days ago

    Also I’m not sure about ownership, repots I found says that 94% of farmland is not owned but land-leased.

    When talking about efficiency gains you scale with your cultivated area. If that land is owned or leased does not matter.

    those technologies were not given free, yes some old soviet stuff left but investments have to been made.

    I’m not talking about Soviet stuff. It’s the fact that the ability to invest in new technology is strongly correlated with farm size. For example a farm only needs one N sensor. A 4 hectare farm could never invest in one profitably but a 800 hectare farm can buy one and profit first year.

    If there is area with better farmland in France, does French farmer from across the country protest or move to better place? German farmer thinks Ukraine farming more competitive - accept Ukraine into EU, move to Ukraine - profit. That’s what people in other industries do.

    Farming must be one of the least mobile industries in the world. It’s very rare that farmers ever move and that’s because the most common entry into farming is inheriting a farm. Most would rather close down than move internationally. And if you just bankrupted your own farm you don’t really have the capital anyway to buy another farm.

    France’s territory is 27% arable land (170000 km2). Sounds big enough to improve at scale.

    Becoming as competitive as Ukraine requires one of three things. Lowering wages, increasing average farm size for efficiency gains or increasing subsidies. Lowering wages is not desirable and neither are increasing subsidies. Increasing average farm size could be an option but that one is very controversial to a lot of people, even non farmers who just happen to be fond of small scale farming. News headlines titled “small family farms that have been run for generations are forced to close en masse” would not look good.

    However don’t get me wrong. I 100% would be very pro getting Ukraine to enter the EU. However the fact that the entry of Ukraine would be a challenge to existing agriculture in the EU is a real issue that has to be accounted for. It’s kind of like attaching the US Midwest cornbelt right at the EU land border and opening up free trade. Of course that would lead to a disruption in the market.