The great EU farm-swindle exposed

Agricultural subsidies account for half the European Union budget, supposedly because they maintain rural areas in bucolic bliss and help keep struggling farmers off the breadline. But information on who really benefits from the Common Agriculture Policy show what a great deception that is.

Thanks to two intrepid Danish reporters, European taxpayers are starting to realise just how badly they have been ripped off. In the summer of 2004, after an 18 months fight, Denmark became the first country to publish the names of individuals and companies receiving EU annual farm subsidies. The results were a surprise, Putting the ditherers on the defensive, as journalist Kjeld Hansen writes:

The publication of the figures hit the headlines, and the fact that support worth many millions was going to Princes, peers of the realm, estate owners and other millionaires, not to mention food corporations such as Arla, Danish Crown and Danisco was greeted with incredulity.

The list also included the names of Danish politicians such as Mariann Fischer Boel (then Minister of Food and Agriculture), the Minister of Economics and Business Affairs, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Education and many leading members of parliament as well as former ministers and politicians.

Subsequent releases of subsidy payment data in England, The Netherlands, Estonia, Spain, Greece, Sweden and Ireland have all showed the same thing: the principal beneficiaries are rich landlords and agribusiness - not small farmers. As Hansen observes:

In fact, although agricultural subsidies account for half the EU budget, the future development prospects of rural areas appear bleak and, despite CAP reforms implemented this year, the monstrous doling out of billions of euros is leading to the break up of rural communities rather than the reverse.

Far too much money is spent on passively supporting an affluent minority instead of actively investing in a common future. Simultaneously this generous support crucially keeps cheaper Third World farm products out of the European market.

Subsidies also encourage the ongoing deterioration of wildlife and the environment across Europe, and divert a huge amount of resources that could otherwise be invested in education and R&D. Of course the EU could have been publishing this information for years, but chose not to. Now we know why.

Comments

[Farmer Giles]

If 75% of agricultural land area in Europe is owned by either big
business or rich people, and you have a subsidy system geared around
payment per hectare, then of course you'll be paying money to the
"haves". However, if you don't pay that money out (with all the strings
attached), then you won't be able to dictate what the countryside looks
like, and commercial farming and local food production will surely die
quite quickly. Then, watch for the squealing if we have a world
mega-crisis and, because we're heavily reliant on imported food,
millions of Europeans die of starvation.

[Zilch]

Farmer Giles,
What's a "world mega-crisis" exactly?
I understand you're talking about the danger of dependency and the necessity of self reliance, but it's the 21st century, we trade on a global level in all sorts of goods, knowledge, information,services. firstly it's very likely that more than one producer will be available should a crisis affect the production of another. secondly, oil will be the problem, not food if a mega crisis comes to town.
The end of the CAP only means the death of big european agrofood businesses,local farmers will probably remain, and may even fill a currently developping niche market, since the demand for locally grown organic food is currently developping.

[Edward Hugh]

"However, if you don't pay that money out (with all the strings
attached), then you won't be able to dictate what the countryside looks
like,"

Well the evidence seems to be that the CAP is working against the environment. Hansen asserts this and Mark Shucksmith, professor of planning at Newcastle University, and funded by European Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON) - reported on at afoe here - held a similar view:

The principal conclusion from this ESPON project is that in aggregate the CAP works against ESDP objectives of balanced territorial development, and does not support the EU objectives of economic and social cohesion.