A new twist to living off the land.

last updated 8 January 2015

United Kingdom

Boris Johnson

The European Union will throw money at absolutely anyone, said Boris Johnson in London’s Telegraph. The farm subsidy system is so bloated that even I, a writer and member of Parliament with a modest estate, qualify as a farmer. Here’s how: A grassy plot of three-quarters of an acre in my backyard entitles me to 10 euros a year in subsidies. I needn’t farm it or improve it in any way. According to our overlords in Brussels, I deserve this money “merely for being the owner of this blissful patch of grass and rabbits.” How can this be? Just read the 98-page booklet provided by the Rural Payments Agency. “You will find your lungs tightening and your lips blibbering into a pant-hoot of pure amazement at the insanity of our masters.” Rather than continuing to tie the amount of subsidy to the amount of crop produced—which encouraged everyone to farm whatever would grow quickest—the E.U. decided to subsidize everyone equally, based on the amount of land owned. But it failed to foresee that owners of fallow land across the continent would emerge with their hands out. “Forty thousand new dependants have been created! Untold acres are now under new and pointless subsidy! And they call this reform?”