27 Mar 2004
After May 1, East Europe's 'Haves' May Have More

This is a really depressing story on the pending death of the family farm in Eastern Europe. Note the outrageous subsidies paid to corporate farmers in the rest of the EU, that won't be available to the newly ensconced members in the East, and the characterization of small, family owned farms as "inefficient". This seems to me to be an deliberate falsehood: any enterprise that depends on government handouts for it's survival is certainly less efficient than a small farm that pays it's own way.

As Europe expands, many among its new members in the East fear that hundreds of thousands of people may be left behind in a new underclass.

(link) [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

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