The Mail on Sunday ran a 'story' yesterday on the 'fact' that Richard Benyon, A Defra Minister, earns £2m from EU farm subsidies. On closer reading you will find that the £2m is over a 10-year period and so averages out at £200k per annum.
And the Mail on Sunday states that 100,000 UK farmers share £3bn in farm subsidies which means they average out at around £30k per farm per annum. Because of the way the subsidies are allocated, big farms get big amounts, and I am a little surprised if Mr Benyon's farm, at, we are told, 20,000 acres, receives as little as £200k but it could be right.
The Mail on Sunday also says that Agriculture Minister James Paice, who is a farmer, has received 'several thousands' of pounds too over the last decade. I'd be very surprised if he hasn't!
And, the RSPB gets these payments too - as written about before on this blog. Anyone who owns farmland would be mad not to claim the money on offer.
Last year we wrote in the Guardian about the faults of the CAP - they are manifold and manifest. But the faults are in the fact that most CAP payments are in the form of income support and aren't encouraging more environmentally friendly farming. If we want to give all farmers, including Mr Benyon, the RSPB and the President of the NFU, income support that is fine, I guess. It's support that hasn't suffered at all in the recession which the rest of the economy is experiencing. But the real need is to make sure that that money produces a better countryside for us all. I am sure that Mr Benyon and the RSPB would both want to be near the front of the queue to receive money from a reformed CAP which paid farmers for farming sustainably. The fact that the CAP does not do enough to encourage sustainable farming practice is a real scandal.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Hi Sooty
It appears that the picture was taken in May last year, but the article fails to tell us that!
It concerns me as to why this story would suddenly appear in the press at such a sensitive time for breeding Golden and White Tailed Eagles. It is alarmist and inaccurate in the extreme, with barely a fact correct. I wrote a small piece for the Raptor Politics website (raptorpolitics.org.uk) about White Tailed Eagles and the hysteria surrounding the predation of live lambs. Numerous studies have shown that there is no real impact to sheep farming on a broad scale, and that losses of live lambs to eagles is insignificant. The lure of compensation for 'perceived' lamb losses appears to be at the root of these stories.
I agree with your comment regarding sheep farming on Mull, and it appears that in general crofters are tolerant of Eagles on Mull. However I feel that local problems concerning real losses of lambs should be dealt with on an individual basis and not via any broadscale compensation payments.
As for the article printed in this particular national newspaper (and numerous others) it is complete rubbish. It never ceases to amaze me how this claptrap can be printed by leading broadsheets with no attempt whatsoever to research the subject or offer a balanced viewpoint.
Mally