I’m taking it easy this Yule tide — just one post today:
The Memphis Commercial Appeal has an article today describing how the Enn-Zedd farmers adapted to the end of government subsidies:
It was 1985, and the government of New Zealand had made a momentous decision — to abolish farm subsidies in a country where farming had been king ever since Britain colonized the islands in 1840.
Farmers’ incomes plunged by 40 percent. Land and stock prices slumped. There were suicides.[...]
Farming today is 16.6 percent of total gross domestic product, up from 14.2 percent in the late 1980s, and in the year to April 2005 it racked up exports worth $12.7 billion, more than half of all New Zealand exports.
The farmers have learned to diversify. During the subsidy era New Zealand had 72 million sheep — 18 for every human. By last year the number was just 39 million, but more efficient methods mean the islands still produce the same amount of meat, and meanwhile freed-up land is being turned over to growing grapes for wine and other exotic crops. There are even niche markets of deer, goats, ostriches and llamas.
Add this story to the “change is painful, but usually everything turns out for the best” column.