Eye-popping subsidies to EU agribusiness...

So you think giant agribusiness in the U.S. gets too much in farm subsidy dollars? Guess what. They are not alone. The news out of Brussels yesterday was that 712 European Union agribusiness firms received payments of more than $1.33 million (one million Eurodollars) in 2008. Firms in Italy (189 payments), Spain (174), and France (149), split the lion's share of government largess.
 
FarmSubsidy.org (http://farmsubsidy.org) was one of the organizations campaigning for public disclosure of the subsidy payments. Of the 27 EU nations, 18 countries paying subsidies, and who and how much they were paying, were listed in the first ever subsidy report. The New York Times ran the story of the released figures. The report is at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/business/global/08farm.html?_r=1

 “There is no argument for these larger payments,” Harald von Witzke, a professor of international agricultural trade and economic development at Humboldt University of Berlin, told the Times. “If they are designed to be part of social policy, there is no justification. If they are meant to compensate farmers for having higher environmental standards in the E.U., then they are being paid too much.”

Ireland, which had only six members in the million euro club, had one recipient that got a check for $110 million. Greencore, the Irish firm, produces Weight Watchers meals for the U.S. and European markets. It was the fourth largest subsidy payment in the EU.

Small world, huh? 

"Carolyn, I fell down the silo."  Carolyn Moyer's husband, Paul, called her from the cold, hard floor of the concrete silo outside the barn on their dairy farm in Roaring Spring, Pa., on a January morning in 2007. She gives a first-hand account of her family's harrowing experience, and her husband's road to recovery, in our issue going into the mail tomorrow.

Tie me down, huh? Put a leash on me? Okay, matey. Take that. And this. Andthatandthatandthatandthat...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_FVD0BR2Mc