Madam, - The issue of Common Agriculture Policy (Cap) reform could do with deeper analysis. The Blair-camp position adapted by Brian Scott of Oxfam (October 19th) is in my view too simplistic.
I would challenge Oxfam to prove its hypothesis that removing decoupled payments from EU farmers will make poorer farmers better off.
Oxfam should learn from the experience of the sugar regime where a cut of 39 per cent looms. The impact of these reforms, should they proceed, will be to collapse the price of sugar in Europe as a result of unbridled access by third countries. A drastically reduced sugar price from Europe for developing countries would force them effectively to work 10 times harder to stand still in terms of income.
The most vocal groups here in Brussels opposing the sugar reforms are the very countries that Oxfam wants to protect - the developing world countries of Africa, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) and the least developed countries (LDCs).
I accept that in the past the Cap did harm agriculture in the developing world. I saw it at first hand in Namibia and South Africa when filming with Ear to the Ground in 1999, but a great deal has changed since then. The Cap has been reformed.
The root of the problem in Africa was export refunds on EU beef. These are on the way out under the World Trade Organisation and have already been reduced.
What the developing world needs is market access and the benefits of high EU prices, but these prices can only be maintained by market management and not by unlimited access to EU markets - a move that would totally destabilise agriculture and food markets for all farmers.
The real question of how to bring benefits to third world producers must include an analysis of who controls world commodity markets. We need a system which ensures that producers, whether EU or non-EU, get a fair share of the final price paid by consumers for food.
Meanwhile, EU farmers are voting with their feet, reducing stock numbers and looking for alternative crops in the energy sector. This is a sign that all is not well for EU farmers, even with the supports provided by the Cap. Furthermore, the uncertainty created by British prime minister Tony Blair in his repeated attack on the Cap does little to instil confidence in farmers about the future. - Yours, etc,
MAIRÉAD McGUINNESS MEP, (Ireland's representative on the Agricultural Committee), European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium.