NPR - Managing Towards Fairer International Agricultural Trading (FIAT) (p294-306)

Both political extremes of stifling communist control and unregulated extreme greed capitalism have proved unsustainable. This paper argues that the arts of management should be applied, rather than leaving farmers to drown in a tsunami of liberalisation, exacerbated by Trade War storms whenever large producer-trader countries choose to erect ad hoc tariff barriers within their avowed ‘free trade’ philosophy. The paper pleads for a consideration of the need for an international framework within which sustainably-informed private enterprise creativity can operate to the mutual benefit of farmers and consumers. A Highway Code for Fairer International Agricultural Trading (FIAT) is proposed as a top-down means of guiding this, while examples of farmers trading collaboratively, such as Mole Valley Farmers (MVF) in England, are cited as the bottom-up approach towards the same goal. The need for planned boundaries in sustainable management is discussed in the light of the recent lessons from the combined global financial and food crises. It argues that Food Trading needs limiting boundaries as recognised necessary for over-fishing, rainforest felling, and traffic management.