The Common Agricultural Policy

[KingofJorvik]

I'd quite like to bounce an idea around and see the response. The Common Agricultural Policy, or CAP, is an EU law that essentially limits foreign imports of food into Europe, predominately from food producing countries outside the EU. Now at first, I thought this seemed like a good idea, as it protected the interests of European farmers and prevented them being under cut. However, then I thought who needed the money more, European farmers with a solid welfare system and a decent income or the poor third world countries from which most of the import comes. I did a little digging and it turns out that a large chunk of the imports was coming from nations in southern Africa and another large chunk was coming from south America. A large part of the wheat was indeed coming from the US, which could produce the wheat much cheaper largely to lower land costs. However, excluding the US, most of the economies need he money more than ours, and it seems somewhat immoral to act with such protectionism when trade and investment, which the CAP prevents, could allow the Third World to develop far more effectively than any amount of AID. I just wondered if anyone disagreed or agreed or whatever.

[Magicman2051]

While you do raise a valid point without the CAP several of the smaller nations in the EU would have had their farming produce marginalised decades ago. The intend isn't to produce a "fair" economy, it is to produce a competitive economy.

[Condottiere 40K]

The reason you try to maintain a viable farming sector in your backyard are three fold - they tend to have an influential lobby, it's traditional and it's a strategic resource.

[Vizsla]

It is immoral. It completely distorts third world food markets so that farmers there can’t stay in business. This is one of the reasons their economies are screwed and famines occur.
CAP was introduced as a way for Germany to pay reparations to France for WW2 without it actually being called reparations.

We already know how to fix the CAP but we can’t get agreement on it.
We should change it to the system the UK had before we signed up to this EU bollocks.
Simply guarantee prices.
Farmers would know that if they were unable to sell their goods on the market at a high enough price then the government would make up the difference. You pay them just enough to keep them viable but not enough to get rich on. This way you still retain the capacity to produce your own food and farmers are incentivised to grow things that will make them lots of money as opposed to relying on the government guarantee that just about keeps them in business. The main benefit being that market prices are not distorted.

[hellheaven1987]

That is a violation of Free Trade, you know.

[Basil II the B.S]

We already know how to fix the CAP but we can’t get agreement on it.
We should change it to the system the UK had before we signed up to this EU bollocks.
Simply guarantee prices.
Farmers would know that if they were unable to sell their goods on the market at a high enough price then the government would make up the difference. You pay them just enough to keep them viable but not enough to get rich on. This way you still retain the capacity to produce your own food and farmers are incentivised to grow things that will make them lots of money as opposed to relying on the government guarantee that just about keeps them in business. The main benefit being that market prices are not distorted.

Just to point out, a bit of history on the CAP would tell you that it was originally based on a price system, and it was so massive expensive that plenty of countries, UK being the first on the list, raged about it and asked for a refund.
For being an EU basher, you seem to be a bit too much misinformed about what you are bashing.

[Denny Crane!]

CAP supports big farms and hurts poor countries and like most subsidies is just a bad idea.

[Magicman2051]

Actually in Ireland the CAP is the only thing keeping small farmers competitive and ensuring that they don't go completely out of business due to their inability to produce goods at the same quantity. Should be noted that most of those farmers have gone all "organic" too.

[Denny Crane!]

But the larger the producer the larger the subsidy and...your telling me it is keeping economically unsustainable farming going for....? I don't know much about the Irish situation but it certainly does more harm than good in the UK.

[Magicman2051]

The thing is the small farm model is actually economically sustainable here in Ireland, there is less overall dependence on subsidies, although that stands to change. The larger farms in the Irish market have been shored up by EU subsidies, foreign investment and government investment for years whereas smaller farms were largely left to fend for themselves and many farmers opted to, rather than be absorbed into larger farms, diversify.

Many of them still apply under the banner of one large landholding, to as you said get a larger subsidy, but the majority of them maintain the small farm economic model.

EDIT: And a majority of farms, small or large, have migrated to high value export production like (and I'm not actually kidding here) milk. Irish companies supply a huge percentage of the worlds baby milk, powdered or otherwise. It is afterall a growth industry

[saglam2000]

The EU's first goal is to look out for itself, not cater to the the third world nations

[Enemy of the State]

It's blatant protectionism that has no place in the 21st century. It hurts everyone involved. Europeans feel higher food prices and their standard of living is hurt. Even the farmers do not benefit, after all, they are consumers as well. Of course it hurts developing nations by limiting their exports. There is a global division of labor between nations. Some countries have a comparative advantage when it comes to agriculture, why not let them produce our food? We'd be all far wealthier.

[Condottiere 40K]

I'm going to make a wild speculation - if the EU lowered it's protective agricultural force field, it would be the big agro firms in North America that would grab the market.

[Enemy of the State]

I'm going to make a wild speculation - if the EU lowered it's protective agricultural force field, it would be the big agro firms in North America that would grab the market.

So what?

[Condottiere 40K]

This may be close minded of me, but I believe it's in Europe's interest to continue supporting it's farmers, and I certainly wouldn't want to import GE modified food from the States.

[Enemy of the State]

This may be close minded of me, but I believe it's in Europe's interest to continue supporting it's farmers, and I certainly wouldn't want to import GE modified food from the States.

Why?

Your argument is slightly different of course, but honestly most of the arguments for protectionism I've heard are something along the lines of "Oh my god, we'd be getting our food from brown people!". You seem to be more afraid of Americans.

[Condottiere 40K]

I have nothing against importing agricultural produce from Third World countries, and there are Fair Trade programmes (which for argument's sake we'll assume are effective) which ensure the farmers there aren't overly exploited, but history seems to indicate that the intended recipients of such largess (of opening markets) aren't the ones that usually benefit.

Outside of which, buying locally or continentally cuts down on the need to transport the produce, and we have a better idea of what we're getting

[Enemy of the State]

I have nothing against importing agricultural produce from Third World countries, and there are Fair Trade programmes (which for argument's sake we'll assume are effective) which ensure the farmers there aren't overly exploited, but history seems to indicate that the intended recipients of such largess (of opening markets) aren't the ones that usually benefit.

1) Define "exploited"
2) Examples please.

Outside of which, buying locally or continentally cuts down on the need to transport the produce, and we have a better idea of what we're getting

Well that is your choice as a consumer to make if you want local or foreign produce. How about letting other people make that choice themselves?

[Menelik_I]

I'd quite like to bounce an idea around and see the response. The Common Agricultural Policy, or CAP, is an EU law that essentially limits foreign imports of food into Europe, predominately from food producing countries outside the EU. Now at first, I thought this seemed like a good idea, as it protected the interests of European farmers and prevented them being under cut. However, then I thought who needed the money more, European farmers with a solid welfare system and a decent income or the poor third world countries from which most of the import comes. I did a little digging and it turns out that a large chunk of the imports was coming from nations in southern Africa and another large chunk was coming from south America. A large part of the wheat was indeed coming from the US, which could produce the wheat much cheaper largely to lower land costs. However, excluding the US, most of the economies need he money more than ours, and it seems somewhat immoral to act with such protectionism when trade and investment, which the CAP prevents, could allow the Third World to develop far more effectively than any amount of AID. I just wondered if anyone disagreed or agreed or whatever.

It not only immoral, it is irrational : The EU CAP prevent Third world people to freely sell foodstuff in Europe and then the same Europeans send Billions to Corrupt African governments, so of which are downright corrupts.

[Roboute Guilliman]

I'd quite like to bounce an idea around and see the response. The Common Agricultural Policy, or CAP, is an EU law that essentially limits foreign imports of food into Europe, predominately from food producing countries outside the EU. Now at first, I thought this seemed like a good idea, as it protected the interests of European farmers and prevented them being under cut. However, then I thought who needed the money more, European farmers with a solid welfare system and a decent income or the poor third world countries from which most of the import comes. I did a little digging and it turns out that a large chunk of the imports was coming from nations in southern Africa and another large chunk was coming from south America. A large part of the wheat was indeed coming from the US, which could produce the wheat much cheaper largely to lower land costs. However, excluding the US, most of the economies need he money more than ours, and it seems somewhat immoral to act with such protectionism when trade and investment, which the CAP prevents, could allow the Third World to develop far more effectively than any amount of AID. I just wondered if anyone disagreed or agreed or whatever.

Somthing you are missing out, that this is helping very much farmers in eastern europe. I see that the Third World could benefit from removing the CAP, but we got first to look to our own. And its not only the US, there is Argentina, New Zealand, Australia etcetc, which will harm our local farmers. There already have been protests by small european farmers who are not able to compete with the current milk prices. Imagine now getting cheap milk from the US.