Economic Euthanasia

I blogged yesterday how the UN has called for a lifting of food tariffs and biofuel subsidies to help alleviate the starvation in the third world from the high cost of food. I also blogged how this seems to be contrary to NZ First and Greens policies.

Now Trans-Tasman has just come out and they note the following:

The global food crisis should produce a unified national response to expand agricultural output. But, curiously, NZ is represented at the FAO Summit by an 11-man delegation led by Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton (who represents the smallest party in Parliament) and the Greens’ Sue Kedgely (paying her own costs), the party which in its Auckland conference at the weekend was calling for tougher conditions for NZ’s dairying industry.

The Greens have not only demanded NZ’s agricultural producers pay immediately for their greenhouse gas emissions as well as a punitive water levy (which would harm irrigators), but have insisted on bio-fuels being included in NZ’s transport fuels, and also have opposed genetic modification. This is a programme of “economic euthanasia” for the dairy industry. It is not surprising the Greens are finding it hard to lift above the modest levels they are currently polling.

I’m not sure whether the euthanasia is referring to the effects on the diary industry or the effects on those in the third world who need cheaper food, not more expensive food.