Also it would ensure that healthy food is available to consumers. Over half the CAP agricultural budget would be economised by eliminating surpluses and this could be redirected to facilitating the move from intensive to extensive methods. The GATT proposals for agriculture would do enormous harm. Take Vietnam as an example. In other words, they seek to create what they call a free and competitive world market in agriculture.
Competition is a form of controlled warfare.
According to current proposals, standards of safety and quality would be achieved by vesting the exclusive right to define world standards in the Codex Alimentarius, a Committee of the Food and Agricultural Organisation. And drawing on all my past experience, I can assure you that Professor James is right. The GATT proposals for agriculture, if adopted, would do enormous harm. Take Vietnam as an example of many countries making the first faltering steps towards rejoining the free world. Driving them from fields into urban slums would create deeper and longer-lasting devastation than the horrors of communism or the war.