Are these signs that protectionism is waning???

Spotted these couple of stories this morning which could suggest that the global financial crisis could have an unexpected bonus for those that want the agricultural barriers of protectionism broken down. The lack of money for both the governments of France and the US has had the decision makers looking hard at agricultural support within their countries. Financial survival beats political cronyism every time. Long may it continue and lets hope our unsupported agriculture can take advantage of this situation. Sarkozy stops big farms from milking subsidies reports the NZ Herald. After 46 years of shovelling farm subsidies to its richer, more polluting farmers, France yesterday took a historic step towards a greener and fairer European agriculture policy. Paris announced that from next year it would confiscate more than 20% of the billions of euros of European taxpayers' money paid to its ranch-like cereals farms and divert the cash to hill farmers, grazing land, shepherds and organic agriculture.  And Barak Obama says in his speech to Congress" we need to avoid esculating protectionism" and at the fiscal summit he pledged "to end direct payments to agribusiness that don't need them".