Figure 11: Producer support estimates as a percentage of gross farm receipts 60
50
Percentage (%)
40
30
20
10
ra st
ric
Au
Af h
3
lia
3
a
il az Br
ut
d te ni
5
So
at
es
9
St
C
hi
na
11
U
ic
o
12
ex
M
ad
D
an C
EC
16
a
20
Eu
O
ni U
pe
an
Ru
22
on
ia
22
ss
re
Ko
an
n
el
pa
Ic
Ja
47
a
48
d
49
ro
Sw
itz
er
or
la
w
ay
n N
io eg /R ry nt ou C
56
nd
60
0
Note: Figures are average estimates for 2008-2010.
(US$74bn), just over 40% of the EU’s entire annual budget,6 for a sector that accounts for less than 2% of employment across the region. The picture is similar in the United States, where only 38% of farms receive any government support; in 2011, the top 10% of these farms collected 75% of all subsidies.7 Over $277bn was paid out in subsidies between 1995 and 2011, but 62% of US farmers did not collect any subsidy payments at all [see table 5].8
Source: OECD, PSE/CSE database, 2011.
Smaller farmers struggling to compete often incur unpayable debts which drive them into bankruptcy, and their lands are then consolidated into those of the largest and wealthiest farmers. In Europe, 200,000 farmers gave up agriculture in 1999 alone.9 According to a census published by Eurostat, the EU has lost 3 million farms between 2003 and 2010.10 Possibly more than a thousand farms continue to disappear across Europe every day, mainly as a result of the lack of political will on the part of governments and international institutions to back local, family-scale and smallholder agriculture.11 Similarly in the US, more than 90,000 farms of less than 2,000 acres were lost in just five years from 1997 to 2002, while farms above 2,000 acres increased by more than 3,600.12 Yet small farms continue to be a vital part of the rural economy, employing the vast majority of agricultural labourers in many OECD countries and producing the majority of agricultural goods. This is despite being the persistent losers in agricultural support programmes that favour highly mechanized and capital-intensive farm operations. Notwithstanding the social problems caused by the elimination of the family farm and the concentration of land, resources and production, many agricultural subsidies also serve to exacerbate environmental damage. The industrial model of production and consumption that OECD subsidies sustain is based on intensive energy use, and is highly dependent
End support for agribusiness
107