These tactics include: obscuring cuts or spreading them out over time; imposing retrenchment on only one segment of agricultural producers; and coupling cuts with side-payments or measures to make the CAP more equitable.The influence of farmers today stems from several sources including: organizations, public opinion, control of the policy space, and the nature of agricultural production. Each source provides farmers with access to and influence over agricultural policy making. Together, they make it difficult for those seeking to reform the CAP, whether technocrats or environmentalists, to override farmer preferences. Farmers in advanced industrialized countries are generally organized into and represented by a single organization, though sectoral and rival organizations do exist. The organizations have strong membership rates, an impressive capacity to mobilize their membership, and well disciplined and tightly coordinated sub-national branches. Examples of these farmer organizations include France’s Fédération Nationale des Syndicats d’Exploitants Agricoles , the Netherlands’ Land- en Tuinbouw Organisatie and the UK’s National Farmers’ Union . The FNSEA has over 320,000 members, representing well over 50% of France’s farming population. There are also a number of smaller French farmer representative organizations, including the Coordination Rurale, with roughly 15,000 members, the Confédération Paysanne,vertical farming technology with about 10,000 adherents, and MODEF the communist-leaning organization created to be a dissenting voice to the FNSEA, which has, at most, a few thousand members . The Dutch LTO organizes just under 70% of farmers. Finally, the NFU represents roughly 75% of all farmers in the United Kingdom . The Comité des Organisations Professionnelles Agricoles is the umbrella organization that represents all of the member states’ farmer unions to the European Union.
It is the supranational lobby organization whose presidency rotates among the heads of the national farming unions. Combining the membership of all the constituent unions, COPA represents roughly 13 million farmers. Both the FNSEA and LTO are multi-tiered organizations that have local and regional branches united under a single national office. The NFU, meanwhile, is divided into three main branches, one representing England and Wales , another Scotland , and the third Northern Ireland . The three main branches, like the French and Dutch farmers’ unions, have many more regional and local offices. NFU England and Wales typically takes the lead in representing the NFU supranationally in consultation with the Scottish and Northern Irish branches. While certain types of farming may be concentrated in particular regions, farming in general is undertaken nationwide, meaning that farmers are professionally organized across the entire country. This type of organizational structure is distinct from that of most other interest groups, such as trade unions. Other interest organizations often lack either local-level representation throughout the country or tight coordination between national and sub–national branches. Country-wide coordination between national and sub–national branches permits farmer organizations to be actively engaged in political discussions at all levels of government. As one local politician from the Netherlands noted, the LTO has representatives at every single council meeting and is the only representative organization, professional or otherwise, that regularly attends . This strong presence in local politics allows farmers to form tight bonds with key local actors and shape the ways that important policies are implemented at the local level.In addition to regularly participating in local and regional politics, farmer organizations routinely engage with national politicians of the left and the right in the capital and in their home constituency. For example, a member of the left wing of the Assemblée Nationale stated that he had “regular monthly meetings” with representatives of the FNSEA while a member of the right leaning Les Républicains noted that he “meets regularly with [the FNSEA] and helps them advance legislative texts”3 .
The effect of regular contact with politicians locally and nationally is maximized in cases such as France where politicians hold multiple mandates. For example, a member of the parliament can also be a mayor. Multiple mandates allow farmers to lobby politicians in two capacities, as both a national and local office-holder. Local lobbying can be particularly powerful because of the additional pressure that the national government can put on local officials to keep their towns in order and minimize conflict. The influence of the farmer organizations is not just limited to national farmers’ unions. Other lobbying organizations include agricultural research centers or institutes, universities, such as the highly regarded Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and representative organizations, similar to the national farmers’ lobbies, that focus on one crop. In addition to their national offices, these sectoral organizations, such as the Association Générale des Producteurs de Blé in France, typically maintain offices in Brussels, allowing them to lobby directly about those aspects of the CAP that are most important to their constituents. In France, the broader farming lobby also includes the Chambres d’Agriculture. France is divided into 18 regions , with each region further divided into multiple departments , for a total of 94 across mainland France. Each département has its own Chambre d’Agriculture . Each région also has its own Chambre d’Agriculture, with the regional representatives coming from the chambres départementales. Finally, the 94 Chambres d’Agriculture are organized nationally into the Assemblée Permanente des Chambres d’Agriculture . The collective Chambres d’Agriculture thus afford the French farming community yet another avenue through which to lobby the government and influence policy at the departmental, regional, and national levels. Another source of influence for farmer organizations is their monopoly on expert knowledge. Agricultural policy is incredibly complex- both to create and even to understand . As a result, government representatives and officials, and even sometimes the ministry of agriculture, will rely on the research centers, technical institutes, or various national and sectoral representative organizations to provide expert advice, research, and data on various aspects of agricultural policy.
The government’s reliance on these organizations affords the broader farming lobby even more political power and influence. On all matters of agricultural policy, including creation and reform, the government is very dependent on farmer organizations for both expert advice and implementation. This dependence allows farmers to wield more influence than other interlocutors. For example, they can reject non-preferred alternatives as implausible or difficult to implement. In addition,vertical tower planter the government’s reliance on the expertise of farmer organizations in the research and policy development phase affords these groups privileged access and a first mover advantage; they can exert influence before other actors gain access to the debate. Sometimes, due to their expert knowledge farmers and their representative organizations are permitted to implement policies, creating further opportunities for them to shape the policy. A third source of political power and influence is the relationship between farmers and the public. Public opinion data demonstrate that Europe’s farmers benefit from a sympathetic public. According to the 2014 Eurobarometer survey, only 17% of French respondents think CAP spending is too high, while 69% believe spending is at the right level or too low. In general, the French public is supportive of its farmers and takes great pride in the myriad specialized wines, cheese, and other foodstuffs they produce. French farmer organizations, like the FNSEA have recognized that the farmers’ relationship with the public can be a powerful source of political influence. Indeed, the FNSEA routinely manipulates public opinion to serve its purposes. Often, its marketing highlights the plight of the small, family farmer while its political lobbying tends to privilege the interests of the large cereals producers. As Table 1.1 illustrates, strong public sympathy for farmers is not confined to countries like France. British farmers also benefit from a positive and sympathetic relationship with the public. According to the most recent Eurobarometer survey , only 16% of the British public believes that CAP spending is too high, while 72% believes that CAP spending is at the right level, or too low. This strong support for the CAP is all the more surprising given the British context. A series of public health scares have given British farmers a particularly bad reputation . In addition, the general public in the UK is among the most Euroskeptical in the EU. The belief that the UK pays far more into the EU than it gets out is widespread and contributed to the Brexit vote and the UK’s decision to leave the Union. Despite past issues with food safety and growing Euroskepticism, the British public maintains something of a soft spot for the CAP and for British farmers more broadly. A sympathetic public can be a key tool for the farmer lobby, and is one that many farmer organizations commit significant resources to maintaining . Favorable public opinion permits farmers to take disruptive action without concern for push back from those who are inconvenienced.
It also allows farmers to demand a high price for their products because publics are willing to pay more to subsidize domestic production. Finally, public sympathy gives politicians the political cover necessary to direct costly programs of aid to an already heavily funded and small portion of the population instead of towards more economically promising sectors or other needy social groups. The ways in which farmers produce and the type of products that they cultivate allow farmers to marshal a wide range of arguments for continuing agricultural income assistance. When farmers are small or inefficient producers, the narrative of caring for farmers in need and investing in small-family enterprises is advanced. Appeals are also made to sustain and preserve traditional rural life and practices. These arguments tie into a desire to protect a country’s rural heritage. When farms are large and efficient, aid is justified on different grounds. Farming is presented as a successful sector, generating jobs and exports and serving as the foundation for the much larger food industry, which includes processing and shipping. It can also be a source of pride or cultural influence for high-end products like cheese or wine. These arguments associate support for farmers with the protection of national culinary traditions and the defense of the culinary patrimony of the nation. Control of the policy space is a fourth and final source of political power and influence for farmers. The EU’s Directorate General for Agriculture which is responsible for developing and implementing CAP policy, is not only bigger than any other directorate, but also has effectively managed to isolate the agricultural policy making process , Keeler , and Knudsen. In CAP negotiations, the agricultural commissioner is the only one actively involved in the meetings. Other commissioners who may have an interest in the outcome of negotiations, like those for trade, budget and finance, competition, the environment, health and food safety, and competition are not party to the negotiations. In addition to excluding other commissioners, control of the policy space also keeps out groups representing other interests such as consumers, industry, and environmentalists. The exclusion of other actors allows agricultural interests to further dominate policy debates, while potential opponents, and the dissenting or alternative perspectives they can offer, are marginalized. Agricultural policy is similarly isolated in trade negotiations. In the Uruguay Round of the GATT, for example, the agricultural component of the agreement was negotiated separately from the rest of the trade deal. In addition, interviews with members of national legislators across countries, including the UK, Netherlands, and France, reveal that, when making agricultural policy, little effort is made to reach out to and incorporate other groups who may be interested in reform outcomes such as environmental or consumer groups . Instead, they consult agricultural interests almost exclusively. By controlling the policy space, agricultural interests can ensure that their preferences are voiced, while potential opponents have little or no opportunity to participate in policy making. Though farmers have seen their numbers decline, they have been able to preserve their influence. Organizations help farmers mobilize for collective action and access policymakers at all levels of the political system. Sympathetic publics permit farmers to ask for policies that are often burdensome for the consumer and tax payer. Control of the policy space prevents opponents from challenging farmers’ policy preferences and putting forward alternative reforms. Finally, the nature of agricultural production allows farmers to advance a variety of arguments about the continued relevance of the agricultural sector. Ultimately, these are the sources of influence that reformers must navigate and that have helped farmers avoid the political irrelevance they seemed destined for as their economic and demographic power declined.