BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Commission was set to recommend a shake-up Tuesday of Europe's farm sector to crank up production in the face soaring demand, with Britain and France braced for battle over hand-outs to farmers.
With food prices rocketing worldwide on tight supplies, the European Union's executive arm wants to encourage farmers to produce more after years of trying to rein in chronic overproduction.
hectares (10-12 million acres) of idle fields into production.

The European Commission presents its plan to shake up its agricultural policy on Tuesday. However, sharp differences within the EU on how far Brussels should go in cutting subsidies means the modest proposals may end up leaving everyone dissatisfied.
Farming in Europe is heavily subsidized. Now Brussels wants to shake up the system -- but some warn it could upset the apple cart.
tting those who advocate further liberalizing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) against those who argue that now is not the time to be undermining it.

Don't ever work with children and animals, they say. A view I can appreciate after trying to persuade French sheep to co-operate for a piece to camera for tonight's BBC News at Ten. Having herded them into the corner of a field in Picardy they simply won't bound about behind me in a tele-visually attractive manner however much I walk backwards into the flock trying to provoke them. Of course when they do oblige and bound around full of the joys of spring I fluff my lines. There is no chance of persuading them to regroup for a retake.
Sheep I am chasing sheep around Northern France for a report on the reform of one of the European Union's most expensive and most controversial

Brussels - If your image of rural life is one of peace, tranquillity and bucolic calm, you have never been in the European Union.
The 27-member bloc's Common Agricultural Policy, or CAP, has caused more rows between more member states than any other policy in the EU's 50-year history.
loc was created.

Soaring global food prices dominated a ministerial debate yesterday (19 May) on how Europe's €45 billion farm subsidy scheme should be reformed.

Stabilizing food prices across Europe needs to be a top priority, Europe's agriculture ministers agree. The hard part will be deciding how to best reform the system.
Current European Union agricultural policy encourages farmers to keep land fallow, a practice that seems to contradict the rising global demand for food. The EU seems likely to acknowledge it needs to put more land into production when it announces agricultural reforms on Tuesday, May 20.
ing its subsidies.

Strasbourg (AP): The European Commission will present a plan on Tuesday to shake up the EU's common agriculture policy, seeking to better control multibillion-euro (dollar) handouts to farmers while increasing food production to meet growing demand.
The EU executive will propose reducing subsidies for large farms and using the money saved for smaller-scale rural development. But the plan is a watered-down version of a previous draft that faced fierce opposition from Germany and several other countries.
France is the biggest beneficiary.

By Dan Buglass rural affairs editor TODAY farmers across the European Union should get some idea of how the Common Agricultural Policy is set to be modified

Gordon Brown's hopes of reforming Europe's expensive system of farm subsidies are fading under resistance from Brussels.
The European Commission will today unveil proposals to shake up the Common Agricultural Policy. But they will be a watered down version of an earlier draft drawn up with British backing.

By James Kanter and Stephen Castle BRUSSELS: The recent sharp rise in global food prices added a new element Monday to the long-running debate over farm

EU farm ministers are meeting in Brussels today (19 - for an emergency debate on the sharp rise in food and agriculture product prices on global markets, just a day before the European Commission unveils proposals for a review of the bloc's agrosector.
The Slovenian EU presidency put the food prices issue on the ministers' agenda "with a view to finding a solution to mitigate the adverse effects of such market price trends," Ljubljana wrote in an introductory statement for the meeting.
sing out of milk quotas and scrapping the rules on keeping land fallow in a bid to encourage more production.

European Union agriculture ministers meeting this week in Brussels are set to rubber stamp a middle path of not antagonising major beneficiaries like Germany and France while keeping the hopes of free market advocates like United Kingdom alive with cosmetic reform proposals to the EUs Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The alarm for urgent need for CAP modification was sounded earlier last week when Joaquin Almunia, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs said prior to a meeting of Eurozone finance ministers: For the weakest sector of our society, inflation is the main problem. They are suffering a loss of purchasing power, and must pay more for food and other

BRUSSELS: The European Commission will unveil on Tuesday a proposed shake-up of the EU's common agriculture policy to lift output in the face of a food crisis, with Britain and France gearing up for battle over hand-outs for farmers.
According to a draft seen by AFP, the proposals focus on phasing out milk quotas and scrapping rules on keeping land fallow in order to encourage more production.
re Policy (CAP) towards reining in production, farmers are now struggling to keep up with surging demand fuelled by explosive growth in China and India.

Brussels - European Union agriculture ministers are bracing for a food fight as the bloc's executive proposes cutting farm subsidies at a time of soaring world food prices.
On Monday, the agriculture ministers of the bloc's 27 member states are set to meet in Brussels to debate how to tackle the price surge and reforms to the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
s likely to try and steer a safe course between them by proposing modest liberalizations to the CAP, such as phasing out quotas on milk production and stopping the practice of paying farmers to leave land unused.