Nick Tucker in his Talking Point (Oct 4) raises enough issues to warrant another Talking Point. There is, however, a major flaw in his theories which he mentions once – "often imported".

There is always a shortage of UK fruit and vegetables -- the price rarely rises.

As long as food is traded on the commodity markets, British food has two main competitors.

First, food produced by massive intensive food factories such as the 1m sow units in the US.

Second, food produced by peasant farmers. Those include 1bn people working in food production earning less than 40 cents a day.

Farm wages may be too low, but they are vastly more than 40 cents.

Importing food from this source condones the wage of 40 cents. Importing food from intensive units condones their production methods and their standards of welfare.

These are "ethical and moral" decisions that must be made by the government. Stopping production won't make the market work. It won't work while it includes slave labour and factory farming.

John Clark
Northern area representative
Small Farms Association
Cropton Mill
Pickering
North Yorks
www.small-farms-association.co.uk