Friday, April 04, 2014

Common Ag Policy

The EU used to have a CAP blog, but these days it only gets posted in German.  I may be half-German, but I don't read it so I haven't kept up with EU developments.  Today I got to this BBC article on the EU: 

According to my mental math, the EU is spending about $80 billion on its ag policy.  A couple paragraphs from the article shows some differences, and some commonalties with ours:

...greening targets have been watered down, environmentalists say: the requirement for arable farmers to grow at least three different crops, to promote biodiversity; for farmers to leave 7% of their land fallow, to encourage wildlife; and for farmers to maintain pasture land permanently, rather than ploughing it up.

The definition of an "active farmer" has also been contentious. The current payments system is largely based on land area and past subsidy levels, meaning that landowners like airports and sports clubs, which do not farm, have been getting subsidies based on their grasslands or other eligible land areas.

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