President Nicolas Sarkozy has recently unveiled a EUR 1.65 billion rescue package for French farmers, which will serve to further protect “fortress Europe’s” farmers and pile yet more misery upon farmers in developing nations. Sarkozy claims the latest state aid package for French farmers is essential to help “defend national identity” and address a “fundamental structural crisis in the [French] agricultural sector.”

While “Frenchness” may be a matter of billion euro importance to Sarkozy and his cronies, it is the European consumers and developing world farmers that will be foot the bill. The OECD estimates that food prices are 30 per cent higher in Europe than international market prices, effectively billing consumers twice- increased taxation to fund subsides and higher food prices in the shops. Public support for farmers in OECD countries costs a family of four, on average, nearly $1,000 per year in higher prices and taxes.

Meanwhile agricultural subsidies continue to harm the developing world by distorting prices and preventing poorer producers from competing.  75 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas and are dependent upon agriculture, although the least developed countries account for just 1 per cent of the world’s agricultural imports and exports- this tiny percentage partly reflects the difficulty these producers have in getting their produce to international markets.

While Sarkozy continues to protect his uncompetitive farming elite there will be little change to this pattern of inequality. The French agricultural sector already receives over EUR 20 billion a year in CAP subsidies. The extra EUR 1.65 billion will only serve to make this policy even more morally unjustifiable.