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  GaryC - do grow up and I think you will know exactly to what I am referring.
  
  Ross - 'farm support' as you describe in the US is just a subsidy by another name. You are so right, that the CAP at present is not as such a subsidy to keep food prices down as Alexander would have us believe and much of it keeps prices high. Originally of course it was about protecting inefficient French farmers though that is not so much the case now.
  
  You are right that food security has always been an issue as well and, of course, the supermarkets are problematical but to be fair they are to a large extent responding to public demand whether we like it or not. Planning is, you are right, another issue - we have the Whitfield issue locally.... Population growth will certainly present a massive problem for the future placing more pressure on farmland along with the migration from the cities and to the south east in particular. These are real challenges that we face.
  
  There are also countryside conservation issues involved as farmers and landowners are also custodians of their land for future generations. I would have no farm subsidies at all for food production but where a farmer or landowner is devoting parcels of land, including hedgerows, to wildlife conservation, they are providing a service to the nation and deserve to be paid for that service. I do not consider that to be a subsidy as such, but a genuine payment for a service they are providing. There are aspects of CAP now that covers this and that silly initial post by GaryC actually refers to some legitimate payments to landowners for this kind of thing.

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