Two farmers, one Europe, yet worlds apart

"Since we joined the EU [in 1995], prices for our products have dropped," he says. "These days we are lucky to break even on the sale of our goods, so we live on the subsidies. Without EU subsidies, Austria can forget about agriculture."

The Gabler family works from early in the morning until evening, six days a week. Despite all the aid, five of the nine farms in their village have shut down in the past few years. Now, the European Commission is pressing for reforms that would cut subsidies across Europe over a 10-year period and slowly bring in the new member countries.

Economists say that the EU's subsidy program forces Europeans to pay 44 percent more for their food than they would on world markets.

"I want my son to continue our family tradition but if they cut the subsidies I can't see how he could," Gabler says, after cutting hay with his new air-conditioned, computerized tractor. "But I also realize that if we give the Czechs, Hungarians, and Poles the same subsidies, it will break the budget. We need the subsidies ourselves because farming in Austria is more about stewardship of the land than food production."

Austria's rural landscape is an essential part of its tourist economy. Northern Austria, especially, lures thousands of visitors annually with its picturesque patchwork of pristine fields, hedges, and woods, dotted with comfortable white-stucco farmhouses nestled in the foothills of the Alps.

Just across the border, in the Czech Republic, the picture is not so postcard worthy.

Vast fields lie untended and overgrown with weeds, the legacy of forced collectivization under Soviet rule, which left farms decimated and rural communities shattered. A rutted mud track leads to the crumbling stone gate of the Vasa farm. The communists stripped the family of their land and home in the 1950s and only returned it 10 years ago. The farmyard is full of rusting equipment, which Vasa's son endlessly tries to repair. The milking is done by hand.

"I like being a farmer," Mr. Vasa says, while tossing bundles of hay with a pitchfork. "But I am very much afraid that if we join the EU, that will be the end of our farm."

Vasa says EU regulations and production quotas, adopted in preparation for Czech entry to the Union, forced him out of the dairy business last year. Now he makes about $3,500 per year from selling the pigs and cattle he raises, plus $1,200 in subsidies from the Czech government. Although he will get even more in subsidies once the Czech Republic joins the EU, he fears that lower prices and competition from heavily subsidized, technologically equipped Western farms will put him out of business.

"I don't blame the Austrians, Germans, and French for not wanting to subsidize us," Vasa says. "I'm not asking for money, just a level playing field. I don't care if they don't give us any subsidies but, in that case, no one should get them. The fact remains that if we don't receive the same advantages as farmers in Austria, we will never be able to compete in the open market.

"It isn't about fair or not fair. It is about the survival of our farms."

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