We should not be surprised when Tony Blair claims that there is no crisis in British agriculture. After all, this is the same PM who has lavished £540 million on the ludicrous Millennium Dome, while giving only a miserly extra £203 million to UK farmers in his well-trumpeted recent agricultural aid plan. This Government's failure to call up all of the Brussels agrimonetary aid due to British farmers, to compensate them for the strong £, is nothing short of scandalous. In fact, Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler has pointed out that if the UK Government does not use all of its allocation this year, he will be unable to justify putting as much into the CAP budget for next year. British farmers will therefore suffer a double whammy.

Meanwhile the relentless decline of our once great industry continues. The fact that the farm gate price of a pint of milk is currently dropping below 10p, while the retail price remains at well over 30p, perhaps serves to illustrate the rip-off culture that is strangling the entire agricultural industry. At the very least, farmers could have expected consumers to benefit from the catastrophically low prices they are currently receiving for almost every category of commodity. Low prices could even have stimulated demand.

But the dairy sector is not alone. Arable, beef, sheep and poultry farmers are all suffering too, while the pig sector has suffered particular problems. During the past two years the pig industry has experienced such acute difficulties that it has resulted in a dramatic reduction of the national herd. There are 30% fewer pig farmers than there were two years ago, as more and more are driven out of business. Yet British consumers are still buying Danish and Dutch bacon and pork, often produced under welfare and hygiene conditions that would be considered illegal in this country.

And what is the EU doing about all of this? Well first of all they are debating the European Commission's budget which will fund the CAP for the next twelve months. Despite calls for a reduction in the CAP, which swallows more than half of the entire funding in the EU, there will, in fact, be an increase of 7% in farm spending next year. However, Agricultural Commissioner Franz Fischler has decided that all of this increase should go to compensating French farmers who suffered damage to their farms during last winter's hurricane.

This news may surprise Scottish farmers, particularly those who live on exposed parts of the south west coast, who suffer damage from gales and hurricanes every winter and never receive a penny in help from anyone, let alone the European Commission.

It should come as no surprise that the heftiest increase in the budget has been allocated to the wine sector, which will receive 1.1 billion Euros, a staggering increase of 64.5% on last years budget. However, Europe's olive oil growers will get a nice 9% increase, providing them with an astonishing 2.3 billion Euros of subsidy, while the biggest scandal of all involves the EU's tobacco growers, mostly to be found in Spain, France and Greece, who will also receive a 3% increase in their subsidy, taking them to over 1 billion Euros, despite the fact that smoking kills 500,000 European citizens every year! And this from a European Commission who claim to be at the forefront of the anti-smoking and good health debate!

Those primary farm sectors which are suffering the worst effects of the recession can look forward to more modest increases. The beleaguered dairy industry will receive an increase of only 0.3%, while the sheep sector will suffer an actual cut of over 2%. Needless to say, the protests from UK Conservative MEPs have been long and furious and the battle to decide on next year's budget has only just begun.