If the CAP doesn't Fit...

If the CAP doesn't fit

I'm willing to bet that the media will be awash with stories of food price rises and the global food crisis this year . And I'm also willing to bet that, unless you read the farming press, you'll hear next to nothing about the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), even though it's the single biggest budget spend for the EU.

Farming within Europe is basically financially bankrupt without the CAP. But its effect on your shopping basket is notable by its absence when it comes to discussions about food prices.  And if Caroline Spelman MP (the UK Environment Secretary of State) gets her way, from 2013 your weekly shop will be even more costly, to the environment as well as your purse.

At last week's Oxford Farming Conference, Spelman announced that EU farming policy should become even more 'market orientated' and eradicate direct subsidy payments for farmers. What was her rationale? She stated that "rising global demand for food and rising food prices make it possible to reduce subsidies and plan for their abolition."  What does this mean in real terms? It means that, in her view, the food crisis that is driving food prices up at record rates and has added an extra 150 million people to the world's hungry is good for business.

But is getting rid of these subsidies good for business? A quarter of all farming households in the UK live below the poverty line (see). And while the majority of CAP money still goes to the small number of large landowners in the UK (the Duke of Westminster, for example, has received nearly  €7million in subsidies since 1999), CAP subsidies are the difference between a viable farming business and bankruptcy for many small and medium sized farmers. According to DEFRA research, more than half of the UK's farmers would struggle to stay in business if the CAP was removed. 

Beyond DEFRA's findings, the evidence from the market itself indicate that only some farmers will do well out of rising prices. Last month, Farmer's Weekly teamed up with The Anderson Centre, a farm business consultancy, to look at the year ahead for farmers. What they found was while some arable farmers would do well despite rising farm input prices, the livestock sector would struggle against rising feed and fuel prices and supermarket buying power. In fact, many would see their profits wiped out.  

None of which is surprising - free markets have a tendency to concentrate economic power into fewer hands over time, and squeeze small producers. The effect of the overwhelming power of supermarkets is well established and precisely the reason we started the campaign to bring in a supermarket watchdog. The concentration of corporate power within the food chain, and the continuing impoverishment of farmers has been extensively documented .

 Removing existing Government support for farmers will only make the situation worse. Ultimately without some support for farmers in the UK we'd see more proposals like the Nocton 'mega' Dairy in Lincolnshire  . We'd also see an increase in the sort of 'industrial accidents' that come from further intensification and centralisation - accidents like the mix-up between biofuels and chicken feed that led to the closure of over 4,700 farms in Germany last week because of dioxin pollution in eggs . Further intensification means greater demand for imported feed like soy, oil and phosphate to make fertilizer, and water. All of which are either in short supply or significant drivers of environmental destruction  or both. And there is no guarantee food prices would drop as the combination of a free market, climate change, global competition for land and water and rising oil prices would create huge instability and lost food security.

 But Spelman is right to suggest that we need to change the current system. The CAP currently underpins what is an unsustainable and unjust farming system and fails to adequately support sustainable farming. With the CAP up for review in 2013 we have a real opportunity to ensure that farming in the EU is both sustainable and fair - providing real food security for people instead of bolstering profits for big business.

The place to start is with removing the perverse subsidies for factory farming , and rewarding farmers for sustainable practices, like protein feed production, mixed sustainable farming systems and more rotations. This will help remove our reliance on cheap imported livestock feed . It will require a change in our diets, and a shift in mindset. But it is one that will help eradicate farmer poverty, environmental destruction, and a healthier diet  for all of us.