NEW REPORT REVEALS UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF FRENCH FARM SUBSIDIES

According to a report from Paris-based economics think-tank Groupe d'Economie Mondiale (GEM) de Sciences Po, less than one percent of French farmers -- the largest ones -- receive more in subsidies than the bottom 40 percent of farmers taken together. In addition to this statistic, the report highlights the lack of transparency with regard to the disbursement of farm subsidies under the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). French media outlets have also recently highlighted the fact that large farms receive the lion's share of such grants.

In response, international charity Oxfam issued a statement calling for a change to these policies. Celine Charveriat, head of Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign, stressed that "we want [the CAP] changed so that it supports small farming and environmentally-friendly production, not the big export-oriented agri-businesses that dump cheap produce into poor countries." France -- a stout defender of the CAP -- receives EUR 9.4 billion out of the EUR 44 billion allotted to EU farms under the subsidy programme. Oxfam has previously published data showing that CAP funds in other EU member states similarly benefit big agribusiness and the wealthy.

In the US, the Washington based research and advocacy organisation Environmental Working Group (EWG) regularly publishes information on the distribution of US agricultural subsidies, which also overwhelmingly benefit big agribusiness rather than family farms. Their most recent study demonstrated that 72 percent of US farm subsidies over the past decade went to only 10 percent of the recipients.

To access the GEM report visit http://gem.sciences-po.fr/content/publications/pdf/PACbriefEN20051107.pdf.

The EWG Farm Subsidy Database is available online at http://www.ewg.org:16080/farm/.

ICTSD reporting; "Lid comes off French farm subsidies," OXFAM RELEASE, 7 November 2005.