The person signing the article invites you to listen to the Egonarria program. In 32 minutes, Iker Elosegi will explain to him the cultivation model that is driven by the higher institutions; the current food system depends on subsidies; that what the tractor party has achieved benefits the agro-industry and that pushes farmers to accelerate in a "dark tunnel with final wall"; his opinion on the deployment of renewable energies in farmland... It is a pleasure to hear Elosegi in sweet tones and simple words.

If you’ve tried to read what’s said, here are some elegant ideas that Elosegi has abruptly exposed:

The common agricultural policy for what purpose?

Elosegi explains in what context what was known as the "PAC" emerged in the street: "Born in the 1960s with the objective of facing a unique situation at European level: II. Manage the consequences of the World War, especially the entire food and feed production system. The basis was that Europe had to be able to feed its inhabitants, to get out of the catastrophic situation and to produce a great deal, to modernise, etc. ". The whole current system of cultivation and feeding emerges this way and time.

What has the Common European Agricultural Policy done to achieve these objectives? Cultivation industrialization. In the words of Elosegi: "He has differentiated farms: if there were meat cows in a farm before, dolphins, chickens, fields, orchards and stories, those farms become independent, let's say, they only have milk cows. Farms have separated and intensified their production. At the same time, the number of farms has fallen, the number of baserritars, and in some places they have almost disappeared. They are all the consequences of the CAP".

A system based on subsidies that are shared between citizens’ taxes to make food cheap

“Food must be cheap for customers. Food and hunger cannot be allowed to be too chariot,” is the message that, according to Elosegi, politicians disseminated when the European Common Agricultural Policy was created. To do so, they have put in place a "model that needed industrialization": "Farms must produce homogenized products so that the industry can transform them at the lowest possible cost and then transport purchases them at the lowest possible cost to sell and sell customers." He recalled that the revolutions caused by price rises in different parts of the world, such as the one set as an example the rise in the price of bread in Egypt in 2008, do not occur in Europe, as "people get a relatively cheap food". But the most important thing is that subsidies must be allocated to farmers in order to survive.

Elosegi is clear: "If tomorrow Europe decides "there are no more joint cultivation policies", the cultivation system across Europe will fall, and soon! ". It says that there are very few growers who live without subsidies, especially horticulturists. But whether it receives subsidies or not, she warns that: "I do not know that in all of Euskal Herria (there will be some, but I do not know) has been enriched in cultivation, with that economic activity. Farmers live very little, in most cases, very badly some. And if you consider how much you earn per hour of work, it's misery. Therefore, this trade is usually done by people for love: they know it is a job but they have no owner, they are the head of themselves and they have a relationship with the environment, which the citizens do not have on some sunny Sundays. That satisfies them, but economically it's difficult."

Where do the subsidies come from? According to Elosegi, "all customers, every time we buy, that is VAT, that is VAT, that is TDA, it is said as you want, but with these taxes, at the end of the day, each state brings a sum to the European Union. Most of this European currency is intended for payment of agricultural policy."

Subsidies mainly subsidising large owners

The distribution of European subsidies "is not fair", Elosegi said: "It's always the same, the bigger the farms, the bigger the lands, the larger the number of cows, the larger the number of sheep, the larger the number of everything you want, the more subsidies." This promotes the logic of producing a single product among farmers and producing it as much as possible, and competition between them. Elosegi: "Added to this is that extending the scope is more subsidies, and so what has happened. Look at Álava, to give you an example, how many farms there are now, what kind of areas they are, what hectares they have... They're big. Go to other regions and that's what you see."

Elosegi has denounced that the most subsidised are the "large owners of land far from crops". Incites the public: "In the kingdom of Spain, among you, in Andalusia or in Extremadura you have some heirs of these lords. There they are raising thousands of euros, doing nothing."

Subsidies must be allocated at the most and delivered by person, not by treasury

Elosegi explains that there is a collision between models in European decision-making centres: "In Parliament that debate has been, it is not as simple as I am going to say now, but the need to limit subsidies has been discussed: that a treasury cannot have more than EUR 1000 per year. This measure was not adopted by very few Members. And, therefore, the possibility of unlimited subsidies remains."

He explains that many proposals have been made to change the cultivation model. Highlights a specific measure: "What would be very simple, publicly subsidize by people and with a limited amount, and not by farms. Every household wants to raise as much as possible. On the contrary, if you do it per person and give a cap, you put another chip in the head of the farmers: I don't have to increase, so I don't need to drown work to maximize the subsidy. I know I have a subsidy per person, so I will adapt and improve my working conditions. In the North we see how farmers intensify or increase their sheep, etc., increasing the workload. And a person has work skills, the day is 24, no more, so the limits are there."