Common Agriculture Policy (not such a bad thing afterall)

Yeah, and obviously every single EU farmer will go out of business and there will be no possibility of more farmers starting up to take advantage of the high prices being paid for milk! Once they're gone, they're gone.

but will you then be complaining that you have to pay more income tax becuase of all the extra seeking umemployment benefit?
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Best argument I've heard yet! "Keep subsidising our farmers or you'll have to pay them the dole!"

Are they all incapable of doing something else? How about we subsidise every factory that threatens to close down so that the employees won't claim the dole? What absolute rubbish.

maybe you don't see a problem with importing beef from South America, lamb or butter from New Zealand ?
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I think its absolutely essential to import goods if they're cheaper than similar domestically-produced goods.
 
What’s Mugabe got to do with the CAP? You are being sensationalist and not accressing anying I posted.

They do indeed; the subsidies that they give to their cotton industry exceed the total value of that industry. They will not reform without the EU agreeing to do so at the same time. At the moment they are the ones pushing for reform and the EU is holding back. The growth promoters question is a different issue.

That’s rubbish. The market would adjust with fewer farmers on bigger farms selling produce at higher prices. We pay the higher prices at the moment anyway, we just do it indirectly through the tax revenue which is given out in the form of subsidies.

The same argument can be made for manufacturing or any sector that is under pressure form international competition. Untimely from an economic perspective the farmers income comes from a hand-out in the form of a subsidy or dole.

jmayo said:
If anything we should be promoting and supporting local agriculture or maybe you don't see a problem with importing beef from South America, lamb or butter from New Zealand ?
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I always buy my meet from a local butcher and my veg, where possible, is Irish. I agree completely with you on that but it’s a different issue.
 

No, I think we'd be paying LESS income tax because we wouldnt be subsidising these industries with taxpayers money. With us importing 100k workers per year, there are plenty of jobs for anyone laid off in the agri business.

If anything we should be promoting and supporting local agriculture or maybe you don't see a problem with importing beef from South America, lamb or butter from New Zealand ?
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I dont have a problem with this. Like in any other business, may the best product win in the sales stakes.

Anyone who is arguing that protectionism, subsidies, the banning of products form other countries and cartel style market operation is good for the Irish consumer and the Irish taxpayer is an absolute nutcase. I have no doubt that agriculture in Ireland is a drain on the taxpayer rather than a benefit - we pump in so much public money into this industry - more money that we ever get back from exports and sales, that we'd be better off and richer without it.
 
P.S. and we'd have a much more environmentally friendly country as farmland would revert to nature and we wouldnt have farmers spewing slurry, phosphates and chemicals into our water table.
 
csirl, I highly doubt the land will be left to nature. More likely be sold as housing sites.
 
So basically it seems that most posters here have no problem with EU tax payers money being used to prop up protectionist policies that keep the rich (us) rich and the poor (in the developing world) poor. Good to see the true colour of European social democracy.
 

Funny how socialists are all for equality until it threatens to hit their pocket.
 
csirl said:
P.S. and we'd have a much more environmentally friendly country as farmland would revert to nature and we wouldnt have farmers spewing slurry, phosphates and chemicals into our water table.
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currently the main problems facing the world are food shortages and this is with subsidised food production in europe and america today, so if europe as you say reverts to nature (and europe currently is a huge producer with its temperate climate) what would that do to world prices they would rocket, it would mean that the rich consumers in europe and america would buy the available food and poor countries would starve, as it is we are having food riots and this is with a small amount of arable land relative to the overall world production diverted to biofuels. When people talk about poor countries being impoverished because of tarriffs, this is true to an extent when you are talking about poor food exporting countries, however what is not publicised is that most of the poorest countries in the world are not food exporting but food importing countries, because they live in areas of the world where there is over population and desertification, if you want the nirvana of a european wildlife sanctuary that can be achieved but only if all the people have also died off due to starvation, the fact is that intensive modern agriculture is essential to support todays population,
 

it is only third world food exporting countries that oppose them, third world food importing countries and there are many more do not as it will result in world food prices increasing, the big beneficiarys of free trade in food are brazil and argentina, they are the only ones with the scale and the truly cheap fertile land to benefit, up to 10 years ago australia would have been among them but australian production has been devastated by drought (another powerful reason why europe must maintain its own production since europe is much more temperate and fertile than australia), i have first hand experience of this drought and this in a first world country. The world population is bigger than the worlds carrying capacity, the only way this population can be maintained is by intensive modern agriculture using all the fertile land in the world
 

Trade tariffs cover much more than just food.
If we traded fairly they might have the income to industrialise their agriculture (like Europe).
There is no way around the fact that the CAP depresses food prices and this encourages farmers in developing countries to produce other non-food crops. They then import more of their food.
I agree that the EU should continue to produce food but not at the expense of other much more vulnerable producers.
 
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