Where Have All the Farmers Gone?
It has been said time and again, that the EU was made for German bankers, UK accountants and French farmers. Indeed, for more than sixty years almost 50% of EU budget (nearly 1% of the bloc’s total GDP) was spent of farm subsidies. According to this Int’l Herald Tribune piece, next year’s budget will be the first one to have spent more on growth than on farming. The prices of food in Europe were so low that EU farmers rather threw food away than sell it at lower (competitive) market prices in protest. In any case they were heavily compensated by hefty EU subsidies.
Slovene farmers protesting god-knows-what
With the sharp increase in food prices (according to this, the prices in UK could go up 30% by the end of the year, and you already know the situation in Slovenia), one would think that there would be no more farmers’ subidies. No?
Happy cow = happy farmer
So, my (rather rude) question is:
Where are all of you loud sonofabitchin’ fucks who would rather waste food than sell it at a smaller profit?!?! Are you motherfuckers happy now? Are the prices OK with you now? Do you feel that your work is adequatly compensated by me and others like me? How does my money in your pocket feel? I mean, do you realize that you get it twice? First out of my pocket directly and then in form of a subsidy which also comes out of my taxes?
I’m sorry if I’m rude (OK, I am rude), but I just don’t think that you can both have the cake and eat it. I’m OK with subsidising EU farmers if that means keeping them in business and keeping the EU reliant on its own resources. But I’m not OK when all of a sudden farmers get the long end of the stick price-wise and get to keep the subsidy.
It. Just. Ain’t. Fair.
Thursday, September 27th, 2007
