Satellites to keep an eye on EU's farmers

mkpdavies · 25-11-2004, 03:33 AM

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/af14820e-3e...00e2511c8.html

Quote:

Europe will police its new agricultural support regime with ultrasensitive spy sat-ellites that can tell whether farmers are keeping their land in good environmental and agricultural condition.

Big brother is watching you. Be a good little European or feel the wrath of the mighty EU machine. Farmers could be terrorists, they must be monitored. Back gardens next, followed by thermal images of your bedroom to make sure there are no terrorists hiding there.

Free country?

Tom Wilde · 25-11-2004, 09:34 AM

Presumably this is a reaction (about 15 years late) to the Italian olive-farming scandal.

Please take what I'm about to type with a sizeable pinch of salt as I can't find a reference and this is only a repetition of something I vaguely remember reading about a long time ago.

The story is that somebody took some satellite photos of Italy, on which olive fields could be identified. Somebody then noticed that the total acreage of olive fields for which farmers were claiming EU subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy was 3 or 4 times the acreage actually visible on the satellite photos. The EU taxpayers were being ripped off for untold millions in falsely-claimed subsidies. Various inspectors were dispatched from Brussels to investigate, and were met in the Italian countryside by large sinister men carrying violin cases (okay, I made up the bit about the violin cases, but you get the idea), who suggested to the inspectors that the climate in Italy was unhealthy at that time of year and that they would therefore be wise to return to Brussels. At this point, it became apparent that the ripped-off EU millions weren't going to support struggling Italian farmers but were in fact being pocketed by the Mafia.

What happenned after that, I don't know. Nothing, probably. But better and more detailed satellite photos would seem like an understandable response. (Scrapping the CAP would seem like a better response still, but we can hardly expect the eurocrats to come to that conclusion, can we? ) :roll:

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25-11-2004, 09:34 AM	#2 (permalink)
Tom Wilde Moderator Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: London. Posts: 2,771	Presumably this is a reaction (about 15 years late) to the Italian olive-farming scandal. Please take what I'm about to type with a sizeable pinch of salt as I can't find a reference and this is only a repetition of something I vaguely remember reading about a long time ago. The story is that somebody took some satellite photos of Italy, on which olive fields could be identified. Somebody then noticed that the total acreage of olive fields for which farmers were claiming EU subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy was 3 or 4 times the acreage actually visible on the satellite photos. The EU taxpayers were being ripped off for untold millions in falsely-claimed subsidies. Various inspectors were dispatched from Brussels to investigate, and were met in the Italian countryside by large sinister men carrying violin cases (okay, I made up the bit about the violin cases, but you get the idea), who suggested to the inspectors that the climate in Italy was unhealthy at that time of year and that they would therefore be wise to return to Brussels. At this point, it became apparent that the ripped-off EU millions weren't going to support struggling Italian farmers but were in fact being pocketed by the Mafia. What happenned after that, I don't know. Nothing, probably. But better and more detailed satellite photos would seem like an understandable response. (Scrapping the CAP would seem like a better response still, but we can hardly expect the eurocrats to come to that conclusion, can we? ) :roll: