“Europe must start growing its own crops once again....”

“Europe must start growing its own crops once again....” | EFE

Jason MoorePalma16/03/2022 09:30
TW0

The opposition Partido Popular, both nationally and locally, has charged that the inflation crisis has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine as the Spanish government has suggested, but is basically mismanagement by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his team. This is a serious allegation and to some extent they are right. We have been battling with rising prices for the last six months.

The official line was that as the farming industry was almost out of action for two years during the pandemic everything is in short supply and therefore prices have risen as a direct result. That sounds about right to me. Last week supermaket shelves did empty as a result of panic shopping basically as a result of fake news. Someone, somewhere decided that supermarkets would empty of basic essentials and the rumour spread quickly via mobile phone text and social media.

The Balearic government was quick to come out and say there was no shortages and that was it. But inflation is a problem. You can find most essentials in supermarkets but the price is far highter. In the case of butter it has almost doubled in price. The sad state of affairs in Europe is that much of what we eat and drink is produced elsewhere and bought at a cheaper price because of lower labour costs.

What we should be doing in Europe is trying to revive our farming industries so that we can grow our own food without having to rely on imports. The problem is that it will cost a lot more.