FAQ

Is agriculture still an important activity in Europe?
Agriculture represents 10% of the European Union total GDP, and it plays an essential role in the European culture and environmental protection. Indeed, agriculture occupies a great part of the territory and helps maintain the lifestyle and economy of many rural areas.

It provides wholesome food for the population and is thus key for European food sovereignty. More than 10% of the EU population works in agriculture and much more in the wider food industry, so agriculture remains essential tokeeping unemployment down.

Does European agriculture destroy the environment?
Bad agricultural practices have very harmful effects on the environment wherever they happen. This is the case with intensive grain monoculture, which uses great quantities of chemicals, of industrial livestock production, which disposes of tons of effluent on the soil, and of intensive fruit and vegetable production that wastes water through irrigation. On the other hand, sustainable family farming can help maintain a healthy and rich environment through good agronomic practices (rotation of crops, polyculture combining livestock production and crops, soil husbandry, etc). Most farmers care for the environment because they know the future is at stake.

Is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) too expensive?
The Common Agricultural Policy represented 44.5 billion Euros in 2003, which was about 35% of the EU budget. However, as that EU budget represented less than 1.2 % of EU GDP, the EU spend overall for agriculture was no more than 0.4% of its GDP. If the aims of the CAP were properly focussed and supported the right kinds of agriculture, this would not be too much to pay.

Do the CAP subsidies hurt poor farmers in developing countries?
Yes… and no. CAP subsidies are currently used to export European farm products below their cost of production, which depresses the price of many commodities worldwide and thus prevents poor farmers in developing countries from selling their goods at a fair price. Because of this “dumping”, farmers worldwide can’t make a fair living from their hard work and many face significant poverty (paradoxically the majority of the people who suffer hunger in the world are farmers). However, subsidies are not necessary to be blamed, but rather the global agricultural policies that prioritise food production for export. Subsidies can be a legitimate way to support agriculture, but they are not be used to support food exports. For example, they can be very helpful to support sustainable agricultural production aimed at the EU internal market.

Are food prices too high?
No. While the price consumers pay is often high, the price received by the farmers is very low, sometimes even below what it costs them to produce it. The multinational agriculture industry and the retail sector receive up to 85% of the final price paid by the consumers, while farmers receive only 15% of it. The prices paid to farmers have decreased dramatically in recent years, while the price paid by consumers have kept increasing. This is because supermarkets and others have increased their profits while consumers and farmers pay.