Anarchy of production and free trade devestates Goulburn Valley

Vanguard November 2013 p. 5
Ned K.
 



(Above: Empty packing shed at Shepparton)



 

Karl Marx wrote about the competing interests among the capitalists of his time, with some demanding trade protection, while others championed the benefits of free trade.

Marx commented that if forced to make a choice between supporting one or the other group of capitalists, he would side with the ‘free traders’ because free trade more fully exposed the contradictions with the capitalist mode of production and highlighted that only planned production for people’s needs, not profit could resolve these contradictions.

This is definitely the case in 2013 in relation to food production in the fruit and vegetable growing area of Shepparton and the Goulburn Valley. The SPC cannery at Shepparton is famous for its tinned fruit in Australia, feeding many a family on a hot day in summer school holidays with peaches, pears or apricots and ice cream.

However recently (according to The Australian October 5-6 2013), the three largest supermarket chains Coles, Woolworths and Aldi reversed their support for orders from the cannery at a time when SPC exported canned fruit dropped from 36,000 tonnes to 4,000 tonnes a year.

Cheap imported canned fruit escalated in the last two years. SPC CEO Peter Kelly blamed the cheap imports for “the most amazing waste of good food you have ever seen” .

He was referring to the fact that SPC threw out $100m worth of fruit last year purchased from local growers and $108m the year before because SPC, producing for profit, could not find a market to sell its products.

The anarchy of capitalist production and free trade led to this situation. No matter how good his intentions, the CEO of SPC could not send the fruit to the starving millions in Asia and Africa. Such is the nature of capitalism that this fruit ended up at the piggery.

The story gets worse. To maintain the viability of SPC as a capitalist entity in a capitalist economy, SPC has closed two food production factories at Kyabram and Mooroopna and is cutting production at Shepparton from three shifts to two. 60 fruit growers in the Goulburn Valley have gone broke, hundreds of workers have lost jobs.

Community Unites To Save Jobs And Australian Food Production

Food growers, cannery workers and local businesses in the Goulburn Valley are campaigning for defence of their livelihoods and for defence of Australian based food production. A Facebook page, Save SPCA Australian Grown And Made has been set up. There have been rallies held and exposure on main stream media.

The community action in the Goulburn Valley is occurring at a time when unemployment and under employment is at 13.5 per cent, as high as it was in the so-called GFC. It also occurs at a time when other regions in Australia such as Elizabeth in northern suburbs of Adelaide are struggling to preserve a whole industry, the automotive and components industry, itself devastated by the anarchy of production of some of the biggest multinational corporations, all of whom champion the benefits of free trade and so-called economic competitiveness.

Through struggle, some small gains will be made by the people, but of equal importance is that their regional struggles reveal to more the need for a fundamental change in direction of how society is organised towards economic activity for the needs of people’s communities, not for the profit needs of individual corporations like Coles and General Motors.