ANOTHER EVIDENCE WHY EU FARM SUBSIDIES ARE DEADLY HARMFUL

EU Observer has recently quoted (link) the study conducted by a team of British scientists showing that, each year, farm subsidies on behalf of EU's common agricultural policy cause strong heart diseases and stroke-related deaths as a consequence of too high nutrition values per se, given the amount of fat that farm producers can use to produce food. This is an additional sign why EU's common agricultural policy is a roadmap in the wrong direction. Taking some basics of the microeconomic theory into account, we can see that EU farm subsidies lead to massive overproduction of milk and diary products simply because producers do not meet a sufficient amount of market information as a consequence of subsidy distortions. Again, subsidies can be attributed only if there is more negative neighborhood effects that the amount of positive ones while agricultural sector is a case study that would suffice the criteria for subsidy giving as there is a market-clearing price mechanism. World Health Organization revealed that EU's annual milk production subsidies amount 16 billion EUR, including a 500 million EUR butter consumption stimulus.

The EU Observer noted (link):

"Looking at the 15 EU states before the 2004 round of enlargement, the annual "mortality contribution attributable to CAP was approximately 9,800 additional CHD deaths and 3,000 additional stroke deaths within the EU," the study says, with France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK seeing the highest numbers of excess deaths."

Market liberalization and an immediate end of subsidizing agricultural production would certainly boost the shift towards consumer choice and demands. In turn, that would also bring positive neighborhood effects since producers' prices would be closer to marginal cost level which means that the severity of heart diseases and stroke-related deaths and consequences would disappear faster and easier. Frankly, it's about time to end the tyranny of EU's agricultural subsidies and CAP. The effect of farm subsidies revealed by British scientists are another strong argument and evidence of the mischief of subsidy-giving.