The survey was conducted among 27,000 consumers across the 27 EU states and discovered that 83 per cent of respondents felt that the offering of financial support to farmers was crucial while 63 per cent of UK consumers felt that CAP support was neither adequate nor sufficient.

“It is really encouraging to see such strong support from EU consumers for agriculture and the CAP. The survey highlights a strong preference for agricultural policy to be determined at EU level. This bears out our call against any renationalisation of the CAP or its budget. While the CAP fundamentally remains an economic policy, EU consumers understandably believe that the CAP should fulfil a variety of goals including maintaining a supply of high quality, healthy and safe food, ensuring reasonable food prices and ensuring a fair standard of living for farmers. The policy faces a number of significant challenges as we build towards the next major CAP reform for 2013 and we believe that the NFU can play a responsible and proactive role in shaping the policy to meet mutual goals of farmers and consumers.” NFU head of economics and international affairs Thomas Hind.

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