George Monbiot

which is to say fruit and vegetables, and you could say home-produced fruit and vegetables, should be subsidised at the point of sale.

Now, we have a massive agricultural subsidy system.

It costs us billions and billions of euros, but it doesn't deliver any good at all for us.

Mostly it causes environmental destruction.

It fattens the profits of the rich guys while giving nothing to the poor ones.

And you could repurpose this subsidy system

to ensure both that farmers stay in business and that we're properly fed.

And one of the very simple things you can do is to say, right, we will subsidise homegrown veg at the point of sale.

So when you go to the supermarket or to your local shop and you buy vegetables, you might pay, say, 50% of what you would otherwise have paid.

But the full price is still paid to the grower.

And that would massively encourage people to eat more fruit and veg because, let's face it, we desperately need to do that.

We don't eat nearly enough of it.

And as a result, our health suffers.

But at the same time, it would ensure that you create a nurture system.

a market for the fruit and veg growers who, as Mick points out in his article, are disappearing at the rate of knots.

Yeah, this is a skilled business.

And, you know, I know this as an amateur veg and fruit grower that I have so many disasters that every year I think, thank goodness I don't have to make my living this way.

It's really difficult because you're constantly faced by changing environmental conditions.

Everything's a bit haywire now with climate breakdown.

You've got your caterpillars, you've got your slugs, you've got your aphids.