How the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy enriches billionaires whilst exploiting undocumented working migrants
👇👇👇 An explainer thread on CAP from a racial justice perspective👇👇👇
Land & food justice has always been connected to racial justice. Historically, it has been weaponised against racialised communities. From:
- exclusion of property rights
- exploitation of racialised labour
- colonisation of the Global South for aggressive food plantations
The Common Agricultural Policy or “CAP '' plays a part in this. CAP is an incredibly powerful policy that determines:
🍎 how we grow our food,
🍏 how sustainable this is for the environment
🍊 who benefits most from subsidies - workers who grow our food or land-owning elites?
Environmental experts at @GreenpeaceEU, @BirdlifeEU and @EEB have pointed out how the current CAP is an unsustainable environmental disaster.
birdlife.org/europe-and-cen…
@GreenpeaceEU CAP is also unjust to most farmers.
CAP subsidies are not determined by how sustainable or productive your farms are but by how much farmland you own.
A whopping 80% of direct payments go to only 20% of elite land-owning farmers.
@GreenpeaceEU This enriches land-owning oligarchs.
nytimes.com/2019/11/03/wor…
@GreenpeaceEU Whilst land-owning oligarchs are enriched, the actual workers on farms who cultivate food are hyper exploited.
The majority of workers on these CAP subsidised farms?
Migrant labourers. Racialised people.
euronews.com/2020/07/17/inv…
@GreenpeaceEU These migrant workers (often from the Global South) are exploited, forced to work unpaid hours, with very little water or safety protection, some fainting and vomiting from exhaustion.
Many live in dire housing conditions & face verbal, physical and even sexual abuse.
@GreenpeaceEU The working conditions of those employed by these farms are not even mentioned in CAP.
This year 300 organisations argued that direct payments from CAP should be conditional on respect for working conditions. This has yet to be addressed by the EU.
euractiv.com/section/agricu…
@GreenpeaceEU Our food systems are built on the expertise, cultivation and labour of racialised people and migrant workers.
However, land-owning individuals & corporations benefit from the EU’s biggest subsidies.
This is how racial inequality is built into the system.
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