Gwénaël Floch runs a small but productive organic farm in Brittany, north-west France. He pays himself, like his employees, the minimum legal wage, while he also has bank loans to repay on initial investment in the business. He receives little more than 300 euros per year from the EU’s annual 58-billion-euro Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies, supposedly promoting organic agriculture, and which will be even less after the introduction of the new CAP in 2023. That is when organic small farms in France will lose the aid, however small, they are currently entitled to, and which prompted farmers to protest in Paris earlier this month. Amélie Poinssot reports from Brittany.
Among the Members of the European Parliament are a group of farmers and others with agricultural interests who benefit directly from the subsidies provided for in the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The fact that many of them are at the forefront of negotiations to map out the reform of the CAP, to be put to a vote during this week, raises a clear question of conflicts of interest. Amélie Poinssot reports.
