The European Union has released ‘indicative figures' on direct payments given to agricultural producers in 2005 under the Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The figures set out aid categories, the number of recipients and the total amounts of subsidies received by recipients in each category.

According to the figures, the lowest category (those recipients who received between zero and 1,250 Euros) had over 4.3 million recipients, or 63% of the total recipients for the EU25. Yet farmers in this bracket received only 1.6 billion euros or roughly 5% of total amounts handed out in direct payments in 2005.

At the same time, the figures show that recipients in the 50-100,000 Euros category - who composed only 1.0% of total recipients - received over 4.9 billion euros: three times the amount received by the group of small farmers at bottom.

Overall the figures reveal that 88% of recipients received less than 10,000 Euros or only 43% of the total budget, while the top 12% received a whopping 57% of the total budget.

The figures can be found on the EU's Europe website at: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/fin/directaid/2005/annex1_en.pdf