I recently went to a presentation about the horticulture industry in the West Midlands as part of my role as the Agricultural and Rural Life Officer in the Diocese of Worcester.  The purpose was to present the results of research into the value of the sector to the region's economy and to look at ways of strengthening the industry.  Horticulture in the West Midlands, including potatoes mainly in Herefordshire that make up nearly half the value of the sector, is worth £600 million in GVA (gross value added) to the region.  This is about £350 million at farm gate prices plus all that is added in processing and wholesaling afterwards.  Worcestershire contributes 20% to this.  Horticulture uses 3% of the land but contributes 20% of the region's agricultural output employing more than 6,000 people in primary production (plus 7,000 part-time employees mainly in planting and harvesting) and nearly 7,000 people in processing, packing and distribution.

It is an important sector, particularly in some parts of Worcestershire, notably the Vale of Evesham, but elsewhere as well.  However, there are concerns about whether the price growers would receive would be viable and about the ability to compete with imports.  It is a complex market, with about 60% of produce going to supermarkets but the other 40% going through wholesale markets to smaller shops, market stalls and the catering trade, and through other intermediaries.

What was striking was that there was little sympathy for the troubles of Tesco that were in the news on the day of the conference.  Once again there were references to supermarkets squeezing farmers and growers on price, and particularly on special offers where it is the grower who bears the mark-down.  Although there is a bill going through Parliament to replace the supermarkets ombudsman with a grocery trade adjudicator there seemed little expectation that much would change.

Whilst it seems there is more to Tesco's travails than getting their current price-cutting campaign wrong, if I were selling to them I would be careful about smiling at their expense, as no doubt if it is thought that different price cuts or vouchers or offers are needed they will not be entirely at Tesco's cost.

The comment on their results and the other news on a wide range of retailers who are struggling, including those that have gone into administration, as well as many high streets that are looking threadbare suggests there are changes happening in retailing more generally.  Tesco's problems may be about customer service and stock availability as well as price, which ought to be relatively easy to fix, but there has also been discussion particularly about their large out of town 'Extra' stores and the wider range of goods they sell.  It has also been suggested that Tesco might slow down the rate of store openings as we must surely be reaching saturation point for retail space.  It will be interesting to see what effect the imminent opening of a new large ASDA along with the other shops, cafes and the like, near to Worcester city centre will have particularly in the present economic environment.  There is a rumour that a department store will be moving over there and one wonders about the effect on the presently very resilient High Street and surrounding area.  I am not suggesting the effect will be anything like the same, but the movement of the centre of gravity of Kiddderminster town centre with new development has had a significant effect on older parts of the area.

And all of this continues to raise the wider question about the need to shift our economy from consumption to production that I alluded to on 13 December last year.  Is there something inherently better in producing than consuming?  I mean this in the context of what gives meaning to our lives (I know there are many other things that give meaning to life as well) but creating and 'giving' are better that consuming and 'taking' - particularly for its own sake.  I acknowledge also that people work for many reasons other than to be creative and that there can be a strong strand of necessity to keep body and soul together as well as instrumental reasons - we get satisfaction from the rewards that work can give us.  I'm also aware that work is not always easy or rewarding, and we are reminded of this in the creation stories in Genesis that those of us who say morning prayer have been reading over these past few days.  Given this is a reflection of the hard labour of early agriculture, it was interesting to hear repeated again at the conference where I began, the difficulty of recruiting local people willing to do the hard work in the fields for modest pay for the harvest as compared with seasonal workers from overseas.  On the other hand, it was stressed several times that there is actually a worthwhile and rewarding career to be had in the horticultural sector for those willing to obtain the qualifications and gain the expertise.

I accept that in what I was saying above that I may be comparing the best of production, where work can be positive and creative with the worst of consumption, where it is for the satisfaction of wants in and of themselves rather than for the perfectly reasonable acquisition of the necessities of life and reasonable things that give pleasure.  Nevertheless, I don't think the human spirit is best served by a minimum of labour (in whatever form, hand or mind) and a maximum of leisure and acquisition.  But given that the resources and capacity of our world are finite, this does raise the question of just how much production we need.

Interestingly, Keynes who found the red in tooth and claw nature of the market system rather sordid, wondered about the time when people might decide theyEcclesiasticus (38:24 - 39:11), though Keynes was not particularly religious beyond the conventions of his day.  Rather he followed in the footsteps of the early 20th century philosopher GE Moore and was also famously a member of the Bloomsbury Set and later a patron and promoter of the arts and culture.  Apparently, he calculated what he thought would be a sufficient income to live comfortably without the need to continuously want more and posited that we might achieve that in the UK about now!  There is much that could be said about why we do not feel that way (and I have previously written about this but unfortunately not in places that are easily available online), though I note in addition to newspaper articles and his 'Keynes: The Return of the Master' (2009), chapter 6, that Robert Skidelsky, Keynes's leading biographer, is writing jointly with his son a further book on this subject entitled , ’How Much is Enough?  The Economics of the Good Life’.  It will be interesting to see what this contributes to the wider debate.