Agricultural Subsidies in Portugal: Their Impact on Farm Income and Consumer Cost in the Context of Accession to the European Community

摘要

Agricultural subsidies amounted to 26 percent of gross agricultural product in 1981. Their elimination will in all instances significantly reduce the commodity systems' private profits or increase losses. For some of these commodity systems the effect of adopting CAP prices, as Portugal joins the European Community (EC), will reinforce the impact of the removal of subsidies and in some cases the CAP price effect will work to offset the subsidy loss. The elimination of consumer subsidies would significantly increase consumer costs for milk and milk powder. However, in the case of skim milk powder, consumer price will decrease under EC conditions. The adoption of CAP prices will increase consumer costs for butter, wheat flour, bread and pork. It will lower consumer costs for cheese, sunflower oil, beef and lamb.