Re: Not smart
farming and fishing industries
There are many reasons for the decline of those industries (environmental, over-supply, depletion of fish stocks[1], Government subsidies etc etc) but over-regulation isn't one.
For example, the fishing regulations (which are by no menas perfect otherwise you wouldn't have the obscenity of dumping dead fish that were not in quota - the law was written by lawyers and politicians who didn't seem to realise that fishing is complex and, when you put the nets out, you'll catch everything that's too big to get through the mesh even if it's the 'wrong' species) were over-complex, and written to try to be all things to all people. And counties that (try to) play to the rules get shafted. But those regulations *had* to be introduced because the fishing industry (as a whole) paid only lip-service to conserving fish stocks despite the huge decline in available fish. So Governments were forced to put in rules to ensure that fish stocks continued to exist.
It was another classic case of an industry failing to regulate itself and being forced to do so by Government. And like most such cases it wasn't done in a particularly good way.
As to farming - what's killing the farming industry is that it's cheaper to grow food that glows in the dark because of the chemicals used in a country where the average wage (and living cost) is 1/10th of here. Even with shipping costs that means the end-user price is a fraction of our costs.
So blame the food companies, supermarkets [2] and the public who all want their food to be as cheap as possible without thinking about what the cheap food means for our farmers or the environment.
[1] For example - the decline of Atlantic cod was pretty close to the final collapse of the species from overfishing - especially since the nets were catching fish before they could get to breeding size and age. Which forced the regulations on net mesh size.
[2] Especially the supermarkets who wield a vastly disproportionate amount of power over the supply chain because of their size. And, to no-one's suprise, they apply no ethics or morals in the methods they use to prop up their market position and profits - including shafting farmers since there's always someone else that's prepared to take over when yet another farmer commits suicide because the supermarkets have driven them into penury. Yes, I had a friend who was a dairy farmer that this happened to - he was given a milk supply contract that (initially) made a small profit. The price paid to him was then cut by 20% (the supermarkets attitude was "take it or we won't buy from you"). He faced the loss of everything he had worked for for the last 30 years and it broke him. To this day, I will never, never do business with that supermarket.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
