EU Proposal: Shift Farming Subsidies To Science

smitty777 writes "There is a proposal in the EU budget which would provide a 45% increase in technology and innovation spending for the 2014-2020 time period. Interestingly, some of the increase from $79B to $114B would come from the controversial farm subsidies program, the Common Agricultural Policy. The article states ... 'While some scientists and observers feel optimistic that the proposal will pass, one stated that "it is extremely unlikely that the member states will agree to anything exceeding this, so we should regard it as a ceiling" on the eventual research budget.'"

Comments

Re:Ha, yeah, good luck with that

[Hartree]

Really? You live in the city, right?

I sure know a lot of family owned farms here in east central Illinois that take the subsidy programs.

But, what do I know. I just hang out with farmers and own farmland of my own. I assure you I'm hardly a megacorp.

Yes, the large corporations like ADM and many others do large lobbying pushes, but they don't directly vote. In farm states (you probably call them fly-over states), the congress-critters often rely on the farm vote to keep their jobs.

Whether it should be that way is a different discussion, but the simple picture you paint is misleading at best.