Tate and Lyle , Nestle , funded by taxpayer ?

[cgksheff]

Sugar , sugar beet , whatever ! Why are my taxes going to Tate and Lyle rather than directly to the farmers who supply the sugar beet ? Do the farmers share in the agricultural subsidies which Tate and Lyle receive ?

 

Why not find out how much Tate & Lyle paid in levies to the EU.

[vinyl]

The UK grows and refines around 8,500,000 tons of sugar from beat each year. This provides thousands of jobs in the country and saves million of food miles. The waste product is an important source of amimal feed.

As we have a rather large trade deficit it seems pretty sensible to produce sugar if we are able. It seems far more sensible than these crackpot schemes of flying runner beans over from South America.

[Nagel]

The UK grows and refines around 8,500,000 tons of sugar from beat each year. This provides thousands of jobs in the country and saves million of food miles. The waste product is an important source of amimal feed.

As we have a rather large trade deficit it seems pretty sensible to produce sugar if we are able. It seems far more sensible than these crackpot schemes of flying runner beans over from South America.

 

I totally agree.

 

I always buy beet sugar produced in this country as a matter of principle. There are a lot less food-miles involved and I'm supporting British farmers and factories.

[anywebsite]

The UK grows and refines around 8,500,000 tons of sugar from beat each year. This provides thousands of jobs in the country and saves million of food miles. The waste product is an important source of amimal feed.

As we have a rather large trade deficit it seems pretty sensible to produce sugar if we are able. It seems far more sensible than these crackpot schemes of flying runner beans over from South America.

 

It costs much more to produce sugar from beets than it does to produce sugar from sugar cane. It costs over a billion a year in subsidies just to keep it at a similar price in European shops - that's after the cane sugar has travelled across the world & been hit by import tariffs.

 

The food miles/pollution aspect is vastly outweighed by the amount of extra processing beets need to turn them into sugar.

 

A sugarcane crop is much more land efficient, takes much less processing & that outweighs any transport costs. It doesn't go off either, there's no need to fly it in, it can be shipped.

 

For every £1 spent in subsidies £10 is lost to the world economy. Our money is just spent to keep the poor poor.

 

People are in poverty in South America & the Caribbean because they can't export their agricultural products, because they're subsidised in the EU & US, but their governments can't afford to subsidise & wouldn't be allowed to under WTO free trade rules anyway (they don't apply to EU & US).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#Impact_of_subsidies

 

It's not just sugar either, that's only a small fraction of the CAP subsidies we pay each year.

 

If you want to subsidise jobs then just pay people to dig holes & fill them in again, it'll be less harmful. It wont cause famines in the 3rd world because they can no longer afford to farm their land. Alternatively, if that money wasn't given to huge companies to grow sugar inefficiently it could be used for something useful.

 

There are also the costs to our health service caused by making sugar artificially cheap.

[anywebsite]

Why not find out how much Tate & Lyle paid in levies to the EU.

 

Nothing since September 2009? I'm not sure how that's relevant. Before that they paid for an increase in their quota. http://annualreports.tateandlyle.com/2010/ara/businessreview/performance/divisionalperformance/foodindustrialingredientseurope.html

[cgksheff]

..... I'm not sure how that's relevant. ........

 

They paid levies on sugar imported from outside the EU.

A lot of the monies paid to T&L were on refined sugar leaving the EU.

 

It would be relevant to look at the net balance rather than just the gross subsidies.

[anywebsite]

They paid levies on sugar imported from outside the EU.

A lot of the monies paid to T&L were on refined sugar leaving the EU.

 

It would be relevant to look at the net balance rather than just the gross subsidies.

 

Not really that relevant as I wasn't complaining about Tate & Lyle, rather the fact that sugar is subsidised at all. They're just doing business, governments set the rules.

 

I'm also against tariffs on imports. Exporting subsidised sugar is even worse for the global economy than just keeping it for ourselves, it puts even more pressure on farmers in poorer countries, in that case we're just paying out money to prevent farmers in other countries making a profit & we don't get to claim the benefits of getting obese cheaper.

[saunaman]

If the EU are using taxpayer-funded european sugar beet subsidies as a way of depriving cane-sugar producers in poorer countries of making any kind of income from their farming , then what exactly is their overall agenda in terms of improving peoples' lives generally ??

 

To my mind , the EU , none of whose members I have ever known or elected , are quite happily spending £50 million a day of UK taxpayers' money, and the cash cows ( sorry , working taxpayers and tax-paying pensioners) don't even question this , probably because they are so weary and brow-beaten .

 

There are millions of taxpayers , if all of us could spend at least one hour a week looking into how our money is spent by the EU , we might actually get some proper facts , figures and names , upon which to hang our discontent .

[chem1st]

Land monopoly!