GCSE Revision - Agriculture - Impacts of EU

  • The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) governs farming in the countries of the European Union including the UK.

  • CAP protects farmers from competition from cheap foreign imports

  • CAP encourage farmers by using a variety of methods to produce the food needed by the inhabitants of the E. U.

  • In recent years E. U. farmers have produced surpluses in many food types and CAP have had to use a variety of methods to restrict the growth of certain foodstuffs.

Price Support Policies

These are a target price that is set for all farm produce as well as an intervention price. If the price of farm produce falls to the intervention price, the EU will buy the product. This guarantees a minimum price for the farmer but can lead to the EU building up food mountains.

 

Quotas

In the 1980's farmers in the EU were producing too much milk. Milk quotas were introduced in 1984 to limit the production from each farm. Farmers can increase their quota by buying another farmer's quota.
 

Policies of the E. U.

  

Subsidies

This is money paid to farmers for producing certain crops such as oil seed rape. They encourage farmers to grow more of the subsidised crop, making the EU more self-sufficient in many foodstuffs. But the drive to increase yields has led to many of the features seen below

Set-Aside

To limit the quantity of cereal crops being produced the EU pays farmers a subsidy to leave land uncultivated. All arable farmers must leave a proportion (15% of farms over 20 hectares) uncultivated or Set-Aside . They cannot farm this land but it can be used for other purposes, eg. golf courses or camp sites which will earn the farmer money, wildlife areas for which the farmer will be given an extra subsidy, or left under grass for which the farmer is paid a grant.
 

Diversification

This is when farmers develop business activities other than farming on their land as can be seen opposite.
 

Links - Revision DVD

Common Questions

  • In what ways do the EU have an effect on the farming type in the UK

  • Using an example explain how farms have increased production in the EU

  • Explain how modern farming can have an effect on the environment

  • Explain the ways farmers are increasing their income by diversifying