The Farm Business Survey results for the year ending in February 2012 were published towards the end of December last year. These followed the publication of estimated Total Income from Farming a few weeks previously. These data must be considered inthe context of the ongoing and extended reform of the Common Agricultural Policy - now apparently postponed until 2015. But the data, and particularly those contained in the Farm Business Survey, highlight another and particularly contentious aspect of CAP reform: the Single Farm Payment. Frequently denounced as a 'subsidy', the role of the Single Farm Payment is consistently frequently misunderstood. Nevertheless, it continues to constitute an important, not to say vital, constituent of total Farm Business Income, not least for the feed industry's livestock farming customers. Roger Dean has been running a hot calculator over the latest data.
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