Examine With Examples How Government Policies Can

Essay, Research Paper

In the last century, there have been many changes in the

process of farming and this has meant people having views on the countryside and

the influence of farming on the landscape and wildlife. This has meant that

farming has changed even further, as politicians in Brussels determine how

farmers should manage the fields in the European Union, and London politicians

in the United Kingdom. The main influencing factor on farmers. decisions in

recent years is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which was first

implemented in 1962 by the European Government for farmers throughout the EU. CAP had three main aims: ........... To

protect the income of farmers ........... To

increase farm production and therefore reduce food imports ........... To

ensure reasonable prices for the consumer It was considered so important in the EU that 70% of the

EU.s budget was spent on CAP. In order to protect the farmer and increase

production, the EU set a minimum price on each product, if the farmer could not

sell his produce at this price or higher then the EU bought it from the farmer.

This was then sold when the prices rose again, but in reality it was often sold

at a loss, thus being subject to accusations of subsidising exports. This

guaranteed an income for the farmers and then as another method for reducing

food imports, taxing is introduced, so that EU farmers were not undercut by

cheap imports.CAP encouraged an increase in agricultural production and

therefore intensification. Often more chemicals were used in order to get a

larger yield, whilst to increase land capacity water meadows were drained and

dry land was irrigated. Farms also used specialised machinery on larger fields

with specialisation in one or two crops, as this encouraged efficiency. With

the creation of larger fields, hedges were cut down, so habitats were lost and soil

erosion increased. Between 1951 and 1990 96% of lowland herb-rich grasslands

habitats were lost due to the intensification, as all available land was used

for farmland. 60% of lowland heath habitats were lost, and due to deforestation

50% of ancient woodland habitats were lost...

The result of this was a .grain mountain., a .milk lake.,

a .wine lake. and a .butter mountain.. CAP had encouraged farmers to

overproduce and so the EU now had to store all the produce that the farmers

were unable to sell. CAP was also criticised for inefficiency, as it protected

small farmers who would normally have been out of business. It also caused

poorer countries to suffer: for example, economies with sugar cane had

difficulties exporting, due to the taxation of imports into the EU and the

subsidising of sugar beet production. Larger farms tended to benefit more than smaller farms,

thus resulting in the amalgamation of smaller farms by large-scale

agri-businesses. Between 1950 and 1987, the number of farms smaller than 20

hectares decreased by 69 in Great Britain, farms of between 20 and 100 hectares

decreased by 39, but farms of over 100 hectares increased by 154.

Intensification also lead to a change in the treatment of livestock, as they

were kept in smaller areas with larger numbers of animals, thus leading to

fears of animal rights and the transmission of diseases.Although CAP had its bad points, there were also

benefits: it reduced the rural unemployment and rural depopulation, as farm

labourers were able to keep their jobs. Money was also made available in the

countryside for the modernisation and therefore improved efficiency of

agriculture, the farmer was also able to pocket more money for himself, as his

income increased.CAP changed many aspects of agriculture in the United

Kingdom. Subsidies were paid for oilseed rape in order to reduce the amount of

vegetable oil imports. Oilseed rape covered 8,000 hectares before the UK joined

the Common Market, with subsidies in 1986 this had rapidly grown to 280,000 hectares.

Witley park Farm in 1999 planted Linseed due to Area 8 payments under CAP,

receiving £170 per acre on a yield of between ½ and ¾ tonne per acre, although

it was simply used as a cover crop and was then ploughed back into the soil.The .sheepmeat regime. raised the guaranteed price of

lamb by 25% and so farmers were encouraged to have sheep. This lead to a huge

increase from 29.8 million sheep in the UK to 35.1 million between 1979 and

1984. Mislet Farm, in the Lake District increased its number of sheep from 120

to 210, although this has since been reduced to 200 due to quotas.In 1984, Milk quotas were introduced to try to reduce the

.milk lake,. which meant that farmers were limited to the amount of milk they

could produce, and if they exceeded their limit then they were fined at 23p per

litre (1999 price). Between 1983 and 1986 the amount of milk produced decreased

from 13.3 million litres to 11.9 million litres. Howeve

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