How do you like your milk served? Frothed? Heated? Try sprayed onto the side of a wall. The other week Eurocrats were holding their espresso cups out of their windows, hoping to catch some of the hundreds of gallons of milk that protesting German farmers had been spraying onto Parliament’s walls.
What was their (excuse the pun) beef? Negotiations to reduce the Common Agricultural Policy; possibly the most damaging piece of legislation ever enacted by the EU, with the exception of the Common Fisheries Policy.
Over 40% of the EU budget goes on subsidizing farmers from member states (and large number of them in France), to over-produce food, so that they have enough money to live on. It was a policy born out of pure political calculation, appeasing farmers who were suffering from rock bottom produce prices.
Yes it has helped farmers to survive, but many still only scrape buy. Dairy products like butter and cheese are sky high in many European countries, but farmers see very little of that profit. Supermarkets keep most, with giants such as Tesco and Carrefour wielding dominant market power in the supermarket oligopoly structures across EU economies.
But the CAP has not measurably improved the lives or earning of farmers (except to prevent many small holders from going bust). It is part of a self-perpetuating problem because the policy does not challenge or break up the power supermarkets wield over producers.
You might well say that it keeps your food prices low. But remember, it’s only milk that’s cheap. Every other dairy product is expensive on the shelf, whilst the farmer makes a loss producing it.
So what do we do to change it? First thing’s first. You need to write to your MEP, and you need to organize!
L’UE
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