Supermarkets and farmers

'Farmers complain of ruthless buyers', says the Sunday Telegraph. Farmers are complaining about the buying power of the big supermarkets in the UK. It's difficult to feel sympathy for the farmers, most of whom are essentially recipients of government welfare, though, perhaps because it's much higher than normal welfare for disadvantaged people, it's goes by the names of subsidy and protection. (You can find out how much individual farmers in the EU receive here.)

Yet there is a case to be made against the supermarkets. They are not exactly the subsidy-free market-driven businesses they would have you believe. They benefit from a government-financed transport infrastructure that systematically benefits the large and global at the expense of the small and local: roads, ports, airports. Much of the susbidies supposedly directed at farmers in fact ends up with large agribusiness corporates. (One measure of this is farmers in Europe pay much more for things like veterinary products than do their counterparts in subsidy-free New Zealand.) Industry concentration is a result, and the supermarkets benefit from this too. They also can manipulate and benefit from a regulatory environment that tends to favour large businesses at the expense of small.