The European Union is handing out £1bn (US$1.5bn) in sugar subsidies to its processors, at the expense of the world’s poorest farmers.
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A report by Oxfam claims that the EU subsidies allow the European sugar industry to dump millions of tonnes of subsidised sugar on international markets. British Sugar is one of a “handful of companies making massive profits under a price-fixing deal set by Brussels which pays farmers and firms up to three times the going world rate for their sugar,” reports the Guardian.
The subsidies have given beet farmers in France, Germany and the UK the extra shot in the arm to become the world’s leading exporters of white sugar despite being the world’s most expensive producers.
“In a sane world Europe would be importing its sugar,” said Kate Raworth, policy researcher Oxfam and the report’s author. “Instead, European consumers and taxpayers are paying to destroy livelihoods in some of the world’s poorest countries.”
It costs €670 (US$650) to produce a tonne of white sugar in Europe compared with just €280 in more competitive producing countries such as Brazil, Ethiopia, Senegal and Mozambique. Duties of up to 140% on foreign imports shut most low-cost producers out of Europe.
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