[Jim is that infuriating enuff' 4 'ya?] Cows can fly upper class on common agricultural fare
Charlotte Denny and Andrew Clark Wednesday September 25, 2002 The Guardian The Countryside Alliance may have a beef over the size of its subsidy cheques, but a new report calculates today that the European Union spends enough money each year on farmers to pay for a round the world trip for all 21m European cows. Aid campaigners estimate that, thanks to the generosity of Europe's taxpayers, the cows could touch down in London, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Hanoi, Siem Reap, Brisbane, Raratonga, Los Angeles and San Francisco and still have enough left over for £400 spending money each. Alternatively, the 38bn euros (£24bn) annual cost of the common agricultural policy (CAP) could pay for an upper class ticket to New York on Virgin, and the cows would get a free haircut, manicure and massage plus a choice of 50 different movies thrown in. The Catholic aid agency Cafod says the figures highlight the absurdity of Europe's farming regime. The average European cow has a higher income than half the world's population, while the lavish subsidies have created a milk lake which Europe dumps in the developing world with devastating effects on local farmers. "It is time to scrap the CAP," said Duncan Green, trade analyst at Cafod. "UK taxpayers are unwittingly supporting a system that destroys livelihoods of millions of poor farmers around the developing world and does little to benefit European farmers." Cafod singles out Jamaica as a country where the CAP regime has caused particular havoc. The dumping of EU skimmed milk powder has devastated the industry, bankrupting local farmers, according to the report. The battle over the future of Europe's 38bn euros farm subsidy bill is expected to heat up this autumn as the deadline looms for Europe's expansion eastward. Britain, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands insist that tight controls on spending must be agreed before the EU can admit Poland's 10m farmers. But France, the biggest recipient of CAP cash, and the system's staunchest defender has rejected even the moderate reforms proposed by the European commission. France and other hardline defenders of the CAP launched a counterblast in a letter to the Guardian and other European newspapers earlier this week. The French agricultural minister Hervé Gaymard and his counterparts from six other member states rejected campaigners' accusations that the CAP damages developing world farmers.
