Most of us knew that the European Union’s system of farm subsidies, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) gives out huge amounts to farmers in the EU countries. What hasn’t been clear is that a lot of the monies go to businesses only tangentially connected — if at all — with farming.
Now the New York Times has an in-depth article detailing how large sums of CAP money go to such businesses as asphalt manufacturers, and to such people as the Queen of England, Prince Charles and other royal and — very wealthy — individuals.
Here’s some NYT information about the cost of these subsidies:
The E.U. pays out more than half its annual budget, around €53 billion, in farm subsidies, four times as much as the United States. The subsidies cost each European Union citizen around €110 a year, according to the European Commission, a healthy chunk for a family of four. The money is raised from customs duties, sales taxes and a contribution made by each E.U. country based on its wealth.
“Individual families are paying double for their food — one for their higher prices in the stores and then for the taxes that they pay out for subsidies,” said Stefan Tangermann, an agricultural economist.
The article details some of the more far-fetched of the non-farm recipients:
That is how a gravel manufacturer like Arids qualifies for farm subsidies, as did Pasquina, which collected €1.13 million for its new asphalt factory in Spain. The Spanish utility Endesa also was eligible — it received €466,000 for installing electrical connections.
These aren’t just funny stories, but the policy has real economic consequences for taxpayers and the poor in developing countries:
Farm subsidies are a controversial economic tool — a sacred cow for politicians in the United States and Europe. But some economists view them as trade-distorting instruments that hit the pocketbooks of taxpayers and destroy the livelihoods of farmers in some of the world’s poorest countries by prompting Western states to dump surplus food there while also reaping the benefit of subsidies.
Check out CEI’s video on U.S. farm subsidies, “Farming for Dollars.”
This story in the San Francisco Chronicle just shows the insanity of the conventional wisdom these days advanced by greens and anti-corporate farmers. They blame big agriculture for E. coli problems and some propose foolish laws and regulations that will simply create other problems.
Despite claims to the contrary, profits don’t cause microbes. And it’s not big “industry” farming that is the culprit. Small farms and family farmers can have just as much difficulty—if not more–eliminating pathogens.
E. coli just happens. And you can’t stop it. Deer, “wild” pigs, mountain lions, every kind of mouse, rat, ground squirrel, and whatever wild animal can carry virulent microbes. Same with irrigation water. Same with birds flying over the fields. And the barren buffer strips that some have proposed to keep these animals away don’t halt anything; they simply lead to water pollution.
Unfortunately, such foolish “wisdom” undermines good conservation efforts. For example, it discourages conservation at California vineyards. In the past, some have gone out of their way to use tail ponds to collect irrigation and rain water–and any dissolved pollutants–and then pump it back up hill for more irrigation. These tail ponds themselves become wetland habitats. Similarly, vineyards in the Temecula area, Viansa Winery, and others pioneered placing hawk roosting and nesting structures on their property to attract birds of prey to help control rodents, as well as placing nesting boxes for owls and falcons. Yet now the conventional “wisdom” is that such conservation efforts contribute E. Coli and should be dispensed with. In reality, such policies are surely more foolish than wise.
Photo: Escherichia coli bacterium, courtesy of the CDC Public Health Image Library.
Over at Science Progress, a web magazine published by the Center for American Progress, former USDA biotech regulator Val Giddings and U. of Illinois microbiologist Bruce Chassy offer the Obama Administration a well-reasoned and scientifically-sound blueprint for reforming the irrational and burdensome regulation of biotech crops. They write:
In summary, biotechnology applied to agriculture has enormous potential to enhance our ability to develop seeds for improved crops and for enhanced livestock to enable us to meet the food, feed and fiber challenges of a growing world and stressed ecosystems in coming years. Significant impediments are created by unwarranted or outdated regulatory burdens that could easily be removed. The resulting, stronger scientific basis for regulatory oversight will increase the efficiency of regulation designed to prevent or manage risks and uncertainties while enabling more rapid development of innovative, safer products. Benefits to human health, the environment, global political stability and national security would follow.
Ask people who buy organic food what they like about it, and chances are, most will say “they’re grown without pesticides.” As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, that’s not actually true. While organic farmers do not use synthetic pesticides, they do use a variety of chemicals to control insects and plant diseases — including such potentially dangerous substances as copper sulfate, rotenone, pyrethrum, ryania, and sabadilla. These “organic” pesticides are derived from minerals or plants, are lightly processed, and thus are considered to be “natural” for the purposes of organic agriculture. Yet, ounce for ounce, most are at least as toxic or carcinogenic as many of the newest synthetic chemical pesticides.
Now comes news from the UK’s Farmer’s Guardian newspaper that “[n]early half of the pesticides specially approved for use in organic farming [in the European Union] have failed EU safety tests and more could follow as the rules are tightened.” Conclusions of the risk assessments conducted by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) under EU Plant Protection Products regulations first implemented in 1996 can be found here.
According to the Farmer’s Guardian, EFSA “has approved just 14 of the 27 organic pesticides put before it … although many have received a derogation for continued use.” Still, because more stringent rules are due to be promulgated next year, the European crop protection (i.e. pesticide) industry expects that more of the organic pesticides will be found unsafe.
According to an industry spokesperson, “Organic farmers already have limited options for crop protection and if more products are removed productivity could fall and prices could increase.” Of course, since the organic industry has been touting itself as a “pesticide free” alternative to conventional agriculture, this would just mean that what they’re producing conforms more closely to the hype.
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