Mairead McGuinness is an MEP from Ireland and a senior member of the Agriculture Committee. She’s also the new chair ofLUFPG, the informal ‘CAP Reform’ group of MEPs. It appears her website has been hacked by TeAm MoStA from Algeria.
Friday fun quiz: What is a public good?
Anyone who has followed the CAP debate this past few years will have observed how the term ‘public good’ has been adopted by almost everyone seeking to advance their own vision of the CAP, from the dinosaurs of COPA-COGECA, to the more moderate National Farmers Union to the José Bové’s Via Campesina, organic farmers like [...]
Jamie Oliveoil explains the politics of the CAP
I don’t much agree with the Taxpayer Alliance, a right-wing campaign group based in London. The TA thinks taxes are theft and believes governments are rife with waste, fraud and abuse. I think paying taxes is patriotic and believe most public servants are well motivated and do a good job. The TA uses the CAP [...]
Tenant farmer tells it like it is
I have a lot of sympathy with tenant farmers. It is sometimes said that farmers are asset rich but income poor, by which it is meant that they own a lot of extremely valuable land but don’t make a whole lot of profit from working it. In the case of tenant farmers, who have to [...]
A little light relief
It’s Friday afternoon and it’s been a long week. What better to calm the nerves after all the excitement of the health check than to take a break by spending a few minutes playing a new online video game from the European Commission? It’s called Farmland: The Game and in it you will have to [...]
Fischer Boel gives good soundbite
While many are disappointed by the lack of ambition in the Commission’s health check proposals, there’s no doubt that Commissioner Fischer Boel has been on form when it comes to the pithy soundbites.
The mixed up world of US Senator Chuck Grassley
We all know that the legislators who write US farm policy are not the brightest bulbs in the box. Even so, Senator Chuck Grassley treated us to an unusual insight into his own very special, mixed-up world during a telephone press briefing last week, reported in the Des Moines Register. Asked about the contribution of [...]
Agriculture Council fun: rename the CAP
Agra-Facts is one of the best CAP news sources, although it does come with a fairly hefty price tag that probably puts it out of reach of anyone who is not professionally involved in European agriculture policy. Roger Waite, Agra Facts editor, tells me that he would like to open the Agra Facts competition to [...]


