mr president in this debate we must speak of food safety food traceability and above all food security
we cannot decouple these issues from our discussions here today and we cannot ignore the fact that the number of farmers continues to decrease very significantly year on year
an increase in compulsory modulation is quite simply putting your hand into the pocket of europe's farmers
the value of the single farm payment has fallen by approximately fifteen since two thousand and five due to inflation and other issues and yet the proposal is to cut it further
simplification seems to be the buzzword
however in ireland at least the numbers involved in policing farmers have escalated
in recent weeks we had a number of helicopters flanked by sixty-one ground inspectors counting sheep in the hills of connemara a small area where the price of sheep would not even repay the investment by farmers
to some it more resembled the invasion of iraq rather than the benign hand of europe
this is wasteful and conveys an image of an over-bureaucratic europe acting in a totally disproportionate manner
