Buy from the USA. We are still producing tons of it. USA! USA! USA!

William Harmon, Orlando, USA, Florida

Too much of our land is wasted growing animal protein instead of crops. Animal protein is not an efficient way to feed people. We have some of the world's most fertile land and yet we ship in crops from far flung countries. Meanwhile their land is controlled by multinationals and used to grow such non-essentials as tobacco and chocolate. These imbalances need to be addressed if we're to avoid increasingly serious conflicts over scarce land resources.

Steven, Leicester,

Ah yes - another triumph for the central planning fantasy that pervaes Brussels. The 'set-aside' scheme should be applied with vigour to the folk working in the EU: set at 100% the obligatory limit on activity from these pointless beurocrats, and set at 0% the degree to which any "member state" has to take them seriously.

Nick, Rotherham, UK

Half the world starves whilst we grow flowers and grass to look at admiringly

David, Grantham, UK

Just like the soviet central planning disasters that caused so much damage and just like Mao's "great leap forward" the EU's CAP policy has done huge and lasting damage to world food production! At the outset it was a free money club for French & German farmers but it has become so bloated and invasive that it now accounts for a third of the EU budget and what do we get for it?
Time and time again history gives us dozens of examples of how NOT to make mistakes and time and time again we seem to ignore history and make the same blunders over and over again, WHY? Soviet style central planning FAILED! so why is the EU making the same errors? The EU has and is making so many stupid errors in the cause of political and social expediancy that one wonders if the EU commisars were trained in the Stalinist central planning school of thought, which reads somthing like a cross between George Orwells "animal farm" and the "Marxist revolutionary handbook"! Is the EU becomming the new USSR ????

Stephanie Clague, larnaca, cyprus

Check out wikipedia.com on 1816 the year without a summer.What happen in 1816 was short term caused by
natural causes.This time due to mankinds mismanagement
by govenments of the earth, we now will see long term effects that is causing havoc in the from of extreme weather conditions.Its only matter of time when we will see food
shortages and higher prices in the shops.

Michael, Enniskillen, N.Ireland

How many more industrys must the EU wreck before we cry enough!

D Case, Newquay,

The set-aside schemes are a relic of an earlier time when we had wine lakes and butter mountains. They are a somewhat blunt instrument designed to tackle overproduction.

As the problem no longer exists, then the instrument is no longer needed. Farmers should be free to quickly capitalise on the new demand for cereals as the need for support is no longer there.

Roy Ellor, Salford, UK

The empty fields will still be there next year, and the year after. Politicians seem to think that grain production can be turned on and off with the stroke of a pen. Unfortunately thousands of farmers who were told that their services were no longer needed have sold their machinery and found an income elsewhere. You can't store grain in a building that now produces pine furniture.

K Davis, Heathfield,

What a mess. How on earth did we, a industrial nation, allow ourselves to be hoodwinked into having our country run by a landmass controlled by "peasant farmers".

Peter Bolt, Redditch, UK

Is it possible that the day to day issues of ordinary people, including farmers, are really theirs to resolve, where in heavens name did the office people obtain the wisdom/insight which allows them to make these decisions for the people who are closest to the issue ?.

wpo, warsaw, n.y.