Hiki
07-18-2009, 05:54 AM
It's a long article so if you want to read it all click the link.
http://www.ocala.com/article/20090717/ZNYT01/907173008?Title=European-Subsidies-Stray-From-the-Farm
European Subsidies Stray From the Farm
Arids Roma is a gritty Catalan construction company in the northeast of Spain that paves highways and churns out dusty gray mountains of gravel from several sprawling factories.
It is also a beneficiary of €1.59 million in farm subsidies from the European Union, which last year doled out more than €50 billion, $71 billion, from the largest agricultural aid program in the world, one that provides financing to a wide variety of recipients beyond the farmers who plow the soil — German gummy bear manufacturers, luxury cruise ship caterers and wealthy landowners ranging from Queen Elizabeth II of England to Prince Albert II of Monaco.
Arids spreads gravel instead of seeds, but it received a farm subsidy for contributing to rural development — money well spent, according to the Catalan regional government, which requested the payment and then distributed it to the company.
“Paved roads connecting the villages aid the mobility of tractors,” said Georgina Pol Borràs, a spokeswoman for the regional government of Catalonia.
This year for the first time, all of the 27 nations in the European Union were forced to disclose how they distribute the money from farm subsidies, with Germany the only nation failing to comply in full. A computer analysis by The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune of recipients in major countries has provided the first detailed look at who receives the money.
The data underscore the extent to which the subsidy program has evolved beyond its original goals of increasing food production and supporting traditional farmers as they dealt with market fluctuations. It also illustrates how the European Union has moved to emphasize rural development instead of price support and production incentives, and in the process has decentralized the system, giving countries more discretion over the dispersal of subsidies.
The data showed that the biggest share of aid, about €37.5 billion, still goes to landowners and farmers, distributed in thousands of individual payments across the Continent.
But it also showed that hundreds of millions of euros are being paid to individuals and companies with little or no connection to traditional farming. And the heftiest sums flow to multinational companies like food conglomerates, sugar manufacturers and liquor distillers. In France, the single largest beneficiary was the chicken processor Groupe Doux, at €62.8 million, followed by about a dozen sugar manufacturers that together reaped more than €103 million.
The sugar processors do not run farms and Groupe Doux outsources the task of raising chickens to thousands of contract breeders. But they qualified for agricultural export refunds, government rebates to cover the difference between the European price of a commodity and its lower world market price. That is how the German candy maker Haribo qualified for €332,000 in subsidies for the sugar in its gummy bears.
With so much money available to exporters, some companies reached to the skies and the high seas to qualify. For example, Ligabue, a Venice caterer that serves airlines and luxury cruise ships, received €148,000 in export subsidies in 2008 — for sugar and dairy creamer sachets that it “exported” out of Europe literally in the stomachs of passengers.
European officials and some economists believe that much of the cash from those subsidies ultimately trickles down to local farmers, since without them companies might buy cheaper food elsewhere. But the rebates have a powerful effect on global trade by depressing world prices and undercutting poor farmers outside Europe, whose incomes are damaged. It is another form of price support, economists say, a vestige of an old system that encouraged overproduction of food and one that the E.U. authorities hope to end by 2013.
...
The E.U. pays out more than half its annual budget, around €53 billion, in farm subsidies, four times as much as the United States. The subsidies cost each European Union citizen around €110 a year, according to the European Commission, a healthy chunk for a family of four. The money is raised from customs duties, sales taxes and a contribution made by each E.U. country based on its wealth.
“Individual families are paying double for their food — one for their higher prices in the stores and then for the taxes that they pay out for subsidies,” said Stefan Tangermann, an agricultural economist.
This shit is just unbelievable. The EU keeps fucking us citizens in the ass all the time, I can only hope for some change to happen.
http://www.ocala.com/article/20090717/ZNYT01/907173008?Title=European-Subsidies-Stray-From-the-Farm
European Subsidies Stray From the Farm
Arids Roma is a gritty Catalan construction company in the northeast of Spain that paves highways and churns out dusty gray mountains of gravel from several sprawling factories.
It is also a beneficiary of €1.59 million in farm subsidies from the European Union, which last year doled out more than €50 billion, $71 billion, from the largest agricultural aid program in the world, one that provides financing to a wide variety of recipients beyond the farmers who plow the soil — German gummy bear manufacturers, luxury cruise ship caterers and wealthy landowners ranging from Queen Elizabeth II of England to Prince Albert II of Monaco.
Arids spreads gravel instead of seeds, but it received a farm subsidy for contributing to rural development — money well spent, according to the Catalan regional government, which requested the payment and then distributed it to the company.
“Paved roads connecting the villages aid the mobility of tractors,” said Georgina Pol Borràs, a spokeswoman for the regional government of Catalonia.
This year for the first time, all of the 27 nations in the European Union were forced to disclose how they distribute the money from farm subsidies, with Germany the only nation failing to comply in full. A computer analysis by The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune of recipients in major countries has provided the first detailed look at who receives the money.
The data underscore the extent to which the subsidy program has evolved beyond its original goals of increasing food production and supporting traditional farmers as they dealt with market fluctuations. It also illustrates how the European Union has moved to emphasize rural development instead of price support and production incentives, and in the process has decentralized the system, giving countries more discretion over the dispersal of subsidies.
The data showed that the biggest share of aid, about €37.5 billion, still goes to landowners and farmers, distributed in thousands of individual payments across the Continent.
But it also showed that hundreds of millions of euros are being paid to individuals and companies with little or no connection to traditional farming. And the heftiest sums flow to multinational companies like food conglomerates, sugar manufacturers and liquor distillers. In France, the single largest beneficiary was the chicken processor Groupe Doux, at €62.8 million, followed by about a dozen sugar manufacturers that together reaped more than €103 million.
The sugar processors do not run farms and Groupe Doux outsources the task of raising chickens to thousands of contract breeders. But they qualified for agricultural export refunds, government rebates to cover the difference between the European price of a commodity and its lower world market price. That is how the German candy maker Haribo qualified for €332,000 in subsidies for the sugar in its gummy bears.
With so much money available to exporters, some companies reached to the skies and the high seas to qualify. For example, Ligabue, a Venice caterer that serves airlines and luxury cruise ships, received €148,000 in export subsidies in 2008 — for sugar and dairy creamer sachets that it “exported” out of Europe literally in the stomachs of passengers.
European officials and some economists believe that much of the cash from those subsidies ultimately trickles down to local farmers, since without them companies might buy cheaper food elsewhere. But the rebates have a powerful effect on global trade by depressing world prices and undercutting poor farmers outside Europe, whose incomes are damaged. It is another form of price support, economists say, a vestige of an old system that encouraged overproduction of food and one that the E.U. authorities hope to end by 2013.
...
The E.U. pays out more than half its annual budget, around €53 billion, in farm subsidies, four times as much as the United States. The subsidies cost each European Union citizen around €110 a year, according to the European Commission, a healthy chunk for a family of four. The money is raised from customs duties, sales taxes and a contribution made by each E.U. country based on its wealth.
“Individual families are paying double for their food — one for their higher prices in the stores and then for the taxes that they pay out for subsidies,” said Stefan Tangermann, an agricultural economist.
This shit is just unbelievable. The EU keeps fucking us citizens in the ass all the time, I can only hope for some change to happen.