By unlocking the export potential China offers the pig industry, not to mention the red meat sector as a whole, we could gain entry into a marketplace which comprises a fifth of the world’s population.Farm subsidies get public thumbs up
AN overwhelming majority of the British public are in favour of continued income support for farmers, a new survey has found.
A survey conducted by the European Commission’s polling team, Eurobarometer, found 79 per cent of Brits were in favour of paying farmers money to help stabilise their income.
A further 68 per cent of Brits were in favour of maintaining or increasing financial support over the next ten years.
Climate change was identified as a major concern for the British public with 57 per cent of respondents saying they would be willing to pay 10 per cent more for farm produce if it was produced in a way that did not increase greenhouse gas emissions.
High quality, safe and healthy food was seen as a number one priority of the CAP.
Meurig Raymond, NFU deputy president, said the survey sent a very positive message to politicians.
“This highlights the importance of farmers and food production to the public. Society clearly values what our industry is doing and I hope the politicians are listening.”
The UK results were reflected across the rest of the EU where 83 per cent of citizens were in favour of farm income support and 68 per cent said the currernt budget for agriculture was either adequate or insufficient.
The results are a huge boost to farmers and farmer representatives as they travel to Brussels in the coming months to devise future farm policy and determine the size of the CAP budget after 2013.
In total Eurobarometer quizzed over 26,000 European citizens, including 1,300 Brits.
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Readers' comments (8)
Bill farmer | 1 April 2010 11:03 am
Incredible backing for British farming - shows we don't need to be down in the dumps all the time. We can be Proud
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lee sutton | 6 April 2010 2:23 pm
1300 people out of 60,000,000 in the UK, is not going to do us any favours at all. Why would the politicians listen to that very insignificant amount. You would get more of a response in the door of my local Asda on a saturday morning.
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Cornwall Farmer | 6 April 2010 6:28 pm
Lee obviously doesn't understand polling - samples are always around 1000-1500 and results based on polls like this are exactly what politicians listen to.
This EU poll is very good news at this time as we debate the post-2013 policies.
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Lee Sutton | 6 April 2010 6:32 pm
Errr no I do understand polling and still think it's totally insignificant. If you honestly think the politicians will pay attention to that then so be it, but they have not paid any attention to UK agriculture for 20 years because all they are interested in is importing cheap dangerous food because cheap food equals happy general public.
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Sue Cansdale | 7 April 2010 0:05 am
Then it is up to us to vote for intelligent, dedicated, honorable politicians such as Sir Alan Beith to look after the interests of British farmers and ensure our people have good quality ethically produced food at fair prices.
Think carefully before you vote on 6th May!
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Anonymous | 7 April 2010 5:29 am
Eurobarometer poll
EU 27, Number of interviews: 26,761
UK, Number of interviews: 1,322
In general the survey performs approximately 1000 face-to-face interviews per Member State.
Exceptions - Germany: 2000 Luxembourg: 600
United Kingdom 1300 including 300 in Northern Ireland
Info from survey link in article & Eurobarometer site.
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Tantantara | 7 April 2010 5:55 am
Only 15% of the UK survey sample had heard of the CAP, and knew what it was!
How many do you think would be pledging such support if they were better informed?
I agree with support for farmers; but think the CAP is not the best instrument to deliver it.
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Anonymous | 21 April 2010 1:48 pm
Quite astonishing - or ironic that the same farmers whose field perimeters are festooned with vote Tory posters are the benificiaries of over £3 billion aid distributed by European Agriculture Policy (CAP) decisions.
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