So what do we like about the European commission's proposals for the reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP), published on Wednesday?
The move away from historical payments to a flat-rate payment scheme is welcome; capping payments to the biggest farmers is only fair; more help to young farmers would refresh an industry; help for organic farmers is long overdue, and a basic requirement to put a proportion of farmland into environmental management is admirable.
But what don't we like? Handing out €435bn of taxpayers' money over the next 10 years to some of the most destructive corporations and richest individuals in Europe – as millions of people across the continent lose their jobs – is crass. There is to be no rethink of the export subsidy system which is unfair to developing countries, and no new obligation on farmers to protect rivers or biodiversity. The overall cut in funding for agri-environment schemes spells disaster.
Last week we saw some leaks of the proposals, but on Wednesday we received some considered responses from farmers, businesses, unions and environment groups. The consensus is that Europe had a once-in-a-generation chance to reform an unjust and ecologically illiterate scheme, but blew it.
The RSPB, which is one of the biggest recipients in Britain of farm subsidies, fears that conservation will go backwards. Here is Gareth Morgan, head of countryside conservation:
Translated , this means that the two groups, who between them own most of the land in England, are acting like selfish, spoilt bullies. They do not want to see the subsidies of big farmers capped, nor they do not want more money to be given to the environment rather than single farm payments.
Moreover, they object to the EC trying not to pay people who do not actually farm, and they don't like the proposal to take up to 7% of a farm's area out of production. They make no mention of trying to help the small or the vulnerable hill farmers, and when they talk of equity they mean they want as much money as some of the biggest European agribuinesses get. In other words, "sod the environment, we want more".
Ten years ago, after a series of food scares, diseases and scandals, British farmers and landowners were widely pilloried for being socially out of touch with the public, grasping and irresponsible. They have only recently won back some of the trust and admiration but if the NFU/CLA continued to ignore the wider economic situation and try to take their welfare is more important than anything else, they will lose all the goodwill they gained.