The Farm Subsidies Con - Who Really Benefits?
Who benefits from farm subsidies? Think about it.
Do you? Because if you think you do I would venture to suggest that you are a major supermarket shareholder.
This is not the answer most people expect after having been exposed for decades to the drip-feed publicity of the food industry.
For too long the prevailing narrative has been that farmers are living well on massive taxpayer-funded subsidies.
Farmers being paid not to farm.
How depressing.
Add to this the hype about the cheap food we are all enjoying.
We have never had it so good.
We could never go back to how it was - paying so much of our income just on getting enough to eat.
But this is all lies.
We have swallowed and digested them for so long they are part of us.
We cannot see beyond them.
Prepare yourself to look again.
In my part of the world, N Ireland, average farm income rarely exceeds the amount of tax payer funded direct payments.
Since the introduction of the Single Farm Payment in 1994 almost every year showed average farm income in N Ireland as being at or below the level of that payment.
In 2013 Northern Ireland's farming income grew by one-third, yet single farm payments still made up 87% of it.
In other words without subsidies farmers operate at a loss - every year! More or less.
Much of England, Scotland and Wales is little different.
So in practice, these subsidies just about keep our farmers on the land.
In poverty in many cases, but still in business - albeit a loss-making one.
So how do we farmers raise our earnings? The advice has been the same now for decades.
The same two options
Rather sad for those of us who care deeply about animal welfare and take pride in the way we meet our responsibilities to our stock.
Supermarkets dictate our earnings.
Because of their size and their stranglehold on the food industry they decide what our products are worth.
They can import products from abroad very cheaply; bypassing animal welfare regulations in the process.
So we here who comply with rules like the ban in using sow stalls or battery cages for chickens get paid on a par with those abroad who continue with their old habits.
It seems perverse that food could be flown from another country cheaply enough to compete with the one we are in.
But flights are cheap when you pay no fuel tax on them.
You pay no tax when you are big enough to encourage government acquiescence in your practice.
So there we are.
The farmer makes a pittance and the supermarket gets very cheap food to order.
But is this not then cheap for consumers? Do we not benefit as supermarket customers? Few believe that the supermarkets are especially cheap and their profits seem to show that they are keeping the real cash savings for themselves.
Oh, and did I forget to mention it? We consumers pay this large sum through our taxes which subsidises the farmers (who, remember, are running at a loss).
So this is, in effect part of our food bill.
A hidden part.
So we pay a higher price for our food, through our taxes, to keep the farmers on the land producing food for nothing.
Can you see where this is going yet? In this equation the farmer is a red herring.
The farm subsidy is a misnomer.
What is, in effect, happening is that we all pay a tax handout to the supermarkets.
So that they can notch up record profits.
They keep a stranglehold on the food industry sources.
They manage the publicity to keep us all confused.
Look how silent they have been during the latest horse meat scandal.
Now it's over they are back bleating about the "quality" of their offerings and the trust they enjoy from the public.
Remember nobody was prosecuted anywhere for this large-scale fraud.
Do you know of a con perpetrated by anyone in modern times that can match the scale of this? The banks have had a go but we have their number now.
It is time to have a close look at what we call farm subsidies.
Do you? Because if you think you do I would venture to suggest that you are a major supermarket shareholder.
This is not the answer most people expect after having been exposed for decades to the drip-feed publicity of the food industry.
For too long the prevailing narrative has been that farmers are living well on massive taxpayer-funded subsidies.
Farmers being paid not to farm.
How depressing.
Add to this the hype about the cheap food we are all enjoying.
We have never had it so good.
We could never go back to how it was - paying so much of our income just on getting enough to eat.
But this is all lies.
We have swallowed and digested them for so long they are part of us.
We cannot see beyond them.
Prepare yourself to look again.
In my part of the world, N Ireland, average farm income rarely exceeds the amount of tax payer funded direct payments.
Since the introduction of the Single Farm Payment in 1994 almost every year showed average farm income in N Ireland as being at or below the level of that payment.
In 2013 Northern Ireland's farming income grew by one-third, yet single farm payments still made up 87% of it.
In other words without subsidies farmers operate at a loss - every year! More or less.
Much of England, Scotland and Wales is little different.
So in practice, these subsidies just about keep our farmers on the land.
In poverty in many cases, but still in business - albeit a loss-making one.
So how do we farmers raise our earnings? The advice has been the same now for decades.
The same two options
- Become more efficient - this is a euphemism meaning move our systems towards intensive factory farming
- Diversify - this one simply means we should do something else
Rather sad for those of us who care deeply about animal welfare and take pride in the way we meet our responsibilities to our stock.
Supermarkets dictate our earnings.
Because of their size and their stranglehold on the food industry they decide what our products are worth.
They can import products from abroad very cheaply; bypassing animal welfare regulations in the process.
So we here who comply with rules like the ban in using sow stalls or battery cages for chickens get paid on a par with those abroad who continue with their old habits.
It seems perverse that food could be flown from another country cheaply enough to compete with the one we are in.
But flights are cheap when you pay no fuel tax on them.
You pay no tax when you are big enough to encourage government acquiescence in your practice.
So there we are.
The farmer makes a pittance and the supermarket gets very cheap food to order.
But is this not then cheap for consumers? Do we not benefit as supermarket customers? Few believe that the supermarkets are especially cheap and their profits seem to show that they are keeping the real cash savings for themselves.
Oh, and did I forget to mention it? We consumers pay this large sum through our taxes which subsidises the farmers (who, remember, are running at a loss).
So this is, in effect part of our food bill.
A hidden part.
So we pay a higher price for our food, through our taxes, to keep the farmers on the land producing food for nothing.
Can you see where this is going yet? In this equation the farmer is a red herring.
The farm subsidy is a misnomer.
What is, in effect, happening is that we all pay a tax handout to the supermarkets.
So that they can notch up record profits.
They keep a stranglehold on the food industry sources.
They manage the publicity to keep us all confused.
Look how silent they have been during the latest horse meat scandal.
Now it's over they are back bleating about the "quality" of their offerings and the trust they enjoy from the public.
Remember nobody was prosecuted anywhere for this large-scale fraud.
Do you know of a con perpetrated by anyone in modern times that can match the scale of this? The banks have had a go but we have their number now.
It is time to have a close look at what we call farm subsidies.
