CAP gets some unhappy birthday wishes

The Agricultural and Rural Convention, a cross-European alliance of farmers’ critics including the Friends of the Earth, said: “The CAP has traditionally supported the intensification of agriculture to the benefit of large-scale farmers and agri-business.

“Despite reaching its 50th year, and 20 years of reform, the CAP remains unfit for purpose. It’s time for radical change: the European Union needs a more democratic, fairer and greener foundation, that provides healthy food, guarantees the sustainable use of natural resources, enhances the environment and ensures a decent livelihood for all farmers.”

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Between 2000 and 2009 the 27 EU countries lost a quarter of their agricultural workforce. Only seven per cent of those remaining are under 35.

Thirty per cent of EU livestock breeds are at risk of extinction and six are lost each month.

The European grassland butterfly indicator shows a 70 per cent decline since 1994.

The land area used to produce soya for the EU feed market is roughly equal to the area of deforestation in Brazil.

Agriculture is responsible for 10 per cent of EU greenhouse gas emissions, including 75 per cent of all nitrous oxide and 49 per cent of methane.

Costs of excess nitrogen in the environment in the EU have been added up to 320 billion euros a year.

About a third of an EU household’s total environ-mental impact is related to food and drink consumption.

About 60 per cent of all the antibiotics used in the UK go into pigs.

Stuart Agnew, agriculture spokesman for the UK Independence Party, added: “There is no cause for celebrating a disastrously flawed policy that has institutionalised corruption and non-compliance. Only in the first 12 years of its half century did the CAP work reasonably well. Since then, it has all been downhill.”