Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile has a cow over Euro food subsidies:
‘In the European Union, farmers receive a third of their income from government subsidies. Beef and veal producers get more than 70 pct of their income from subsidies,’ he said. ‘A typical cow in the European Union receives a government subsidy of 2.20 US dollars a day. The cow earns more than 1.2 bln of the world’s poorest people.’ … Vaile also argued that agricultural reform would have a more significant impact on world poverty than aid and debt relief. ‘It’s not enough for them to provide aid and debt relief when the benefits of liberalising trade are so much greater,’ he said.