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For me, the situation calls for strategic government intervention. Rather than a 'holiday' on organic standards to weather the storm, why not temoporary payments to organic farmers to cover losses while the slump continues? And in the long term, the government could bring down organic feed costs by creating incentives for organic grain production -- and disincentives for environmentally destructive conventional grain farming.


This is specifically about organic farmers having a rough time in England, but starting up what amount to subsidies sets a dangerous precedent, I think. How do you justify giving it to organics and not traditional? Are they not affected to some degree as well? How do you measure how much "help" is appropriate to make organics competitive? And what do you say to companies who find that subsidies -- even those at least designed to be temporary -- are enticing enough to now enter the organic market? There are secondary effects to adding subsidies, and those need to be considered realistically in any "For me" sort of suggestion.

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