Video transcript: different viewpoints – Malcolm3
Changing climate changes markets

The changes we’ve seen in global marketing are brought about really by the ability of countries that used to be Third World Countries, countries where there was no major production.  Countries like India for example who used to be a major – .  When I was a youngster in my 20’s and we were growing wheat here, India was a big importer of wheat.  India is now an exporter of wheat. You are getting countries in the Middle East, the Far East producing more and more crops and starting to come onto the world market, particularly when it comes to cereals, which obviously is one of the most basic crops that you can grow throughout the world.  So we are seeing bigger competition from the rest of the world, and we’ve lost our monopoly a little bit, particularly when it comes to cereals.

Well I understand the need for other countries, they’ve obviously got to live, and to trade, and I’m a visitor to some countries overseas quite regularly, and I see it from their perspective (sugar producing countries).  At the same time, there is a day the balance will go the other way, and because we are very much an industrial, commercial nation, that our farming disappears altogether.  And that is a grave danger at the moment  - that in 20 to 30 years time if, heaven forbid, the need ever arose again for us to defend, to look after ourselves and produce for ourselves, we could be in a situation where we might be hard put.