Its leaders need at least 7% annual growth, they reckon, to continue to create enough jobs to absorb surplus rural labour and the workers laid off by state-owned enterprises.
Labour rural affairs spokeswoman Sarah Boyack pointed to a public consultation on snaring, which suggested there was a "clear majority" for a complete ban.
BBC: A cat caught in a snare. Pic by League Against Cruel Sports.
The situation has been exacerbated by increasing rates of rural to urban migration which have, on the one hand, deprived the rural areas of agricultural labour and, on the other, increased the demand on the limited social services in urban areas.
Labour's rural affairs and environment spokeswoman Sarah Boyack welcomed aspects of the bill, but highlighted the lack of consensus on major parts of the legislation.
Labour's rural development spokeswoman Karen Gillon also had concerns about the register and was concerned the franchise for voting for the Crofting Commission had not been extended to include more women.
Put simply, this is the point at which a developing country stops being able to achieve rapid growth relatively easily, by simply taking rural workers doing unproductive farm labour and putting them to work in factories and cities instead.
"We have a large number of Labour MPs who represent rural areas and 99% of them have been re-elected, " she said.
Obesity and diabetes rates remain slightly lower in rural areas, indicating that manual labour endures as an effective way to stave off weight gain.
Plaid Cymru's rural affairs spokesperson Llyr Huws Gruffydd AM claimed Labour was dragging its heels.
BBC: Welsh farming unions unhappy at badger cull differences
During environment, food and rural affairs questions on 5 July 2012, Labour MP Julie Hilling asked what ministers were doing to ensure universal availability of flood insurance.
At the same time, as Mr Viljoen's experience shows, grain is increasingly being stored and milled in rural areas, pushing up demand for skilled labour, and raising profits and wages.
The Welsh Tory leader also labelled Labour's record on education, rural affairs and the use of Objective One European funding a disaster.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Wales | Tory attacks 'abysmal' health record
New Labour saw the countryside as a "rural version of the Dome rather than a real place where real people work and live" he added.
Workers in rural areas, who still make up about half the total labour force, never had much coverage of any kind anyway.
Mr Hague said the Conservatives would target tax cuts at those who he said had been hit hardest under Labour such as motorists, pensioners, savers and rural people.
Ringing the alarm on the stagnating progress towards reaching universal primary education, the United Nations' Special Envoy for Global Education Mr Gordon Brown, urged that every failing country should draw up an action plan to address obstacles to schooling, from child labour and early marriage to poor sanitation and lack of facilities in rural areas, which the international community should come into support.
The bill to ban foxhunting has (at least in the eyes of the Labour left-wingers who promoted it) set the urban proletariat against the rural landlords.
Yet capital in India has tended to be in short supply and expensive, whereas labour has remained plentiful and cheap because so many people need work to escape from rural redundancy.
Those who provided labour for the housing boom in America (notably Latinos), Ireland (Poles) and China (rural Chinese going to cities on the eastern seaboard) have been among the first to be laid off.
Mr Dewar was willing to offer concessions, such as a package of aid for rural areas which would please voters in the Lib Dem heartlands of the Scottish Borders and Highlands, and indeed delivered Labour support to elect Sir David Steel, a former Liberal Party leader, as the Parliament's presiding officer (speaker).
ECONOMIST: From now on, Britain will have to get used to coalitions
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