E.E.C. farm policy should go – report

Press, 3 November 1983, Page 12

E.E.C. farm policy should go - report

NZPA London The Common Market’s farm policy should be scrapped because it has put up the cost of food, especially for the poor, , says a report Subsidies had helped , some farmers become millionaires, “but have done nothing to help the poor, who end up paying through the nose for their food,” said •a Conservative British member of Parliament Mr Richard Body. He is one of the authors of “Agriculture Policy,” a report prepared by the i Adam Smith Institute, an . independent “think tank” on < economic policy. < The report also calls for the complete sale of the Forestry Commission .and the reformation of agwniltural marketing boardslinto

voluntary producer groups. The subsidy network of farming comes under particular fire: “Land of poor quality which is more suitable for grazing is turned over to wheat production just to claim subsidies — a tremendous waste of resources.” The days of the agricultural marketing boards, who have power to buy and sell farm produce to support prices and control production, were numbered, said the report It adds: “Forestry has a bright future in Britain, but not under the control of the Government’s Forestry Commission. “It would take only a few years to transfer the Forestry Commission’s land into private ownership.”