Retailers are real beneficiaries - Support for farm incomes

THOUSANDS of farmers protested in Brussels yesterday as the EU announced it will release €500m to help those hit by plunging farm-gate prices. 

The EU spends more than €50bn a year to support farming through the Common Agricultural Policy. This accounts for roughly 40% of the EU’s budget.

Farm protests over incomes are nothing new, neither is the increasingly unsustainable idea that governments — taxpayers — should bail out this particular sector while other businesses are left to their fate. Farmers insist that they cannot continue to feed the world if they are paid less than production costs for their produce and this is entirely understandable and reasonable.