DEAR SIR: Over Christmas, I read some very interesting articles. One of them was about the fact that in China, the average family spends 30% of its income on food, and that percentage was falling. That was the situation here little over a generation ago.

Amazingly, here in that period the proportional cost of most things stayed relatively stable except for two things. Food spending dropped from 30% to approximately 10%, whereas accommodation, whether bought or rented, went from 10% to 30%.

We can easily see the detrimental effects the high cost of housing has had on so many families, whether struggling to pay high rents or mortgages or, worse still, homelessness.

What the public cannot see so easily is the effect this change has had on food producers. We have less farmers, farming bigger acreages, working longer hours for smaller returns.

The response from the powers that be is to produce more, thereby driving down the price even further and exacerbating the situation even more.

The next article was from America. It was called the “Chickenization of Beef”. It made sobering reading. It talked about vertical integration where everything is controlled from birth to plate by a few people. There would be a handful of processors controlling 90% of the market, and 40% of finishers gone out of business.

In the article, processors manipulated the market by owning or controlling large feedlots. Again, does this sound familiar?

Who gains?

Who gains from this? Certainly not the farmer. Does the consumer benefit? Maybe they have cheaper food but we have an epidemic of obesity.

Does the environment gain? I don’t think so. So who does? A few multinational retailers, a few beef magnates, oil companies, chemical companies and banks.

Does the Government know what is going on?

If they don’t, then we have a serious problem. But if they do, and choose to do nothing, then we have a far more serious problem.