Farm subsidies 'Robin Hood in reverse’

Press, 7 February 1985, Page 3

Farm subsidies 'Robin Hood in reverse’

NZPA staff correspondent London

Government-funded support schemes for farmers have been sharply criticised in an important study published this week.

The Common Agricultural Policy, which covers all farming in the Common Market, was singled out in the study, published by the independent London-based Institute of Economic Affairs.

According to the author, Richard Howarth, the policy worked like a “Robin Hood in reverse,” transferring income from poor urban households to rich farmers.

Experience showed it could not be sensibly reformed and Britain should quietly encourage its demise, he said.

Mr Howarth, the son of a Yorkshire dairy farmer, lectures on agricultural economics at the University College of North Wales.

In |iis study, he said the

policy cost taxpayers in E.E.C. countries £45 billion ($llO billion) to support the Community’s eight million farmers last year. Britons in particular got a poor return on the money they spent. Mr Howarth said adherence to the policy was the price Britain had to pay for entry to the E.E.C. — a price now paid in full after 10 years membership. Even by 1978 the cost of farm support to Britain was twice the amount gained by British farmers, he said. “Indeed, British consumers and taxpayers paid out £2OOO million ($4BOO million) more for agricultural policy than British farmers received. “The £2OOO million went into the pockets of European farmers, to storage agencies, to subsidise surplus disposals, or was otherwise swallowed up by C.A.P.”

Mr Howarth said that while it was in Britain’s best interests to remain in

the E.E.C., it would be desirable to withdraw from the policy. It would be to the advantage of the whole Community to scrap the agriculture policy, he said.

He recommended that as most of the other E.E.C. members did not see it that way, Britain should not risk breaking up the Community by unilaterally withdrawing. Rather, it should “discreetly do everything to assist its natural withering away and/or breakdown.” Meanwhile, the National Westminster Bank has said that the level of protectionism in the E.E.C. is frustrating the natural growth of efficient farming in many developing countries. It had restricted export earnings and forced the countries to find new trading partners “such as the Soviet bloc, which in political and Strategic terms cannot be (ideal for Western interests?/’ said the bank in its quarterly review.