Green and Pleasant Land says that the CAP - rather than being the saviour of the countryside - has been an environmental disaster, creating pollution with no economic benefit, and requiring more chemicals and energy use than had market forces been allowed to run. By encouraging the pre-emptive use of antibiotics, it threatens to create antibiotic-resistant diseases. It imposes costs on taxpayers, consumers, other industries and the environment - for benefits described as "trivial".They are right, and this is another opportunity to add a plug for Graham Harvey's book The Killing of the Countryside.
This is not a cheap anti-EU point. The British government was paying out enormous farming subsidies for 30 years before we joined the Common Market.
But it does show the need for the Common Agricultural Policy to be reformed. Which is why I would have voted for Vince Cable and Nick Clegg's motion on Europe if I had been in Blackpool this week.
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