It's a product of subsidies, all the european countries are subsidizing the farmers and if some of them stop it will kill their farmers. At the same time the subsidies are finetuned so the farmers are forced to do things that the govt wants them to do. It's central planning with extra steps.
I'm not sure the majority of the farmers would like the govt to go away completely. They just want their piece of pie (not to shrink).
most of the farmers want those subsidies for sure ... in germany protests started because the government cut the subsidies on diesel
cut on tax cuts on diesel :)
I wonder if all the subsidies and taxes went away, what the balance would be.
In any case, all the subsidies are connected to many strings and hoops you have to jump through. They force you to invest in tech they want you to use. They tell you what, where, how you can do.
There is also continuous satelite imaging to constantly monitor your crops so you follow the condition of the subsidies. If anything looks sus on the satelite photo the ground inspection teams are deployed. So you know, you don't cheat somehow.
This all of course is comming with ever growing mountains of paperwork .
You can't opt out, because then you are uncompetitive.
This what I was able to find about the subject just looking around in the media, so it's not the whole picture and it's maybe distorted a bit.
In any case, what kind of people want to play this game? How healthy is it for the society?
