Originally Posted by
KerrAvon
Ok – let’s take the hyperbole out of this. It will upset Brin and Grist, but agricultural economics is something that I know a bit about (although I am very out of date).
In a nutshell, the EU use to provide subsidies for production. That resulted in farmers in the EU going ‘all out’ and created the likes of ‘butter mountains’ and ‘wine lakes’ – excess production that would have crashed the price if released onto the open market. The subsidy regime was then switched to include an element of production management in which famers were paid for ‘set aside’ - receiving payments to take some of their land out of production.
I’ve not looked at the EU proposals, but have had a very quick and dirty look at the proposals that are currently upsetting some Welsh farmers and they appear to be giving land management a higher profile.
One of the consequences of the EU push for production in the past was farmers ripping out hedgerows to allow for ever bigger fields of genetically homogenous crops that could be easily serviced by large agricultural machinery. The current proposals go some way to reversing that trend by -in a sense - paying farmers to put hedgerows back as opposed to grubbing them out.
Quite apart from the ecological and aesthetic benefits of land management, it can make sense from a farming point of view. The ‘big field’ approach that was driven by the subsidy arrangements of the past increases the risk of top soil being blown and washed away. Trees and hedgerows also provide habitat for predators that can reduce the level of pests in crops.
Like most things, there is a risk of the policy going too far and a one size fits all approach wouldn’t work (a hill farmer may not be able to grow trees). The notion that ‘they’ are trying to starve ‘we the people’ because farmers won't have land to grow food on is a bit silly though.
