Why produce food? Yesterday's report from the Consumers' Association on the European Common Agricultural Policy comes up with a surprising answer to that question.

The CAP has been an easy target for critics. Economists point out that it is ludicrously expensive: according to one estimate, it costs every family in Britain #1000 a year to keep it afloat. It may subsidise farmers, but it doesn't subsidise consumers. In fact, by preventing gluts, it ensures food prices in Europe remain high. And, one could say, to cap it all, it has led to high land prices by making it such an attractive investment.

Next environmentalists took a tilt at it. They claim the CAP has encouraged farmers to indulge in a range of environmentally unsustainable practices from ripping up hedgerows to soaking their land and crops with fertilisers and pesticides, to the detriment of thousands of species of flora and fauna.

Recently the public health lobby put its oar in, claiming the CAP had produced a farming sector motivated by quantity over quality. They contend this intensification, with its reliance on antibiotics, fertilisers, pesticides, growth hormones, and genetically modified foods, has brought with it a shopping basket full of health risks.

Yesterday, it was the turn of the nutritionists. In the past, it has been argued

the impact of the CAP on nutrition is roughly neutral. But Dr Tim Lobstein, head of the Food Commission, in a report for the Consumers' Association, takes issue with that. He claims the CAP is a ''dietary disaster'', which does little to encourage healthy eating. Instead it provides incentives for over-production of foods we should be eating less of, such as dairy products and red meat, while destroying food we should be eating more of, such as fruit and vegetables.

The CAP's guaranteed prices and subsidies mean crop varieties are being chosen for their yield, growth speed, shelf-life, and disease and pest resistance, rather than their nutritional content, says Lobstein.

Golden Delicious apples, for instance, which now make up half of apples sold in the EU, have lower vitamin C levels than other varieties. Wheat crops have less protein, the bigger the yield. He argues that farmers find it easier to make profits from grade II wheat, used for making white bread, cakes, and biscuits, than top grade wheat used for wholemeal bread.

Lobstein poses a basic question: ''What is the purpose of food production?'' After the Second World War, in which millions of Europeans had lived on the brink of starvation, the CAP was established to boost food production. It was a rational response to food insecurity. But

Lobstein contends the CAP has been a victim of its own success. ''It's been enormously successful at producing vast quantities of food. Now we have a situation in which the market is responsive not to consumers, but prices set by the European Commission.''

LOBSTEIN says subsidies have so distorted the relationship between farmer and consumer that many farmers now produce food, not to feed people but simply to make money from the EU. It has resulted in a situation in which the EU produces far more food than it needs, then attempts to mop up surpluses in various ways: beef, full-fat milk, and butter are given away or sold cheaply to those in need and schools and hospitals; assistance is given to manufac- turers of ice cream, chocolate, cakes, and pastries to purchase butter at reduced prices for inclusion in their products; and the EU spends many millions on promoting full-fat milk and butter.

''Even if farmers can't sell what they produce to consumers, they grow it and sell it anyway - to the EU, which gives it to the poor, or puts it into our food by selling it to manufactuerers at artificially low prices. We're still eating the butter we're rejecting as purchasers,'' he told The Herald yesterday. He believes this is the politics of madness at a time when there's increasing evidence to show the risk of chronic heart disease, some cancers, and many other disorders is increased by eating a diet rich in animal fat, salt, and sugar.

He believes part of the problem is that experts in agriculture and food production, on the one hand, and nutrition and public health, on the other, rarely meet. In Europe, food production is handled by the agriculture, fisheries, and industry directorates, while consumption falls to the social, health, and consumer directorates. The budget for the first group accounts for well over half the EU total, while the second group uses less than 10%.

Frank MacRae, the agricultural manager at Lloyds TSB, said yesterday he doesn't believe the link between nutrition and the CAP is as clear as Dr Lobstein suggests. ''We're born with an inherited predisposition to like high energy and high fat foods. If you take fat out of a product, people will find a way of consuming it in another way.''

He believes the public are more powerful and better informed than ever, though he agrees farmers need to be closer to consumers. He points to developments such as the trend towards producing

leaner pork and the various quality assurance schemes as evidence that farmers are moving in the right direction.

Ceri Ritchie, a food business management economist at the Scottish Agricultural Colleges, says recent reform proposals for the CAP would effectively remove most price support and bring farmers closer to their markets. ''It's important to recognise the need for a mixed diet, including red meat and dairy products, and that consumers choose food for a number of reasons, not just nutrition.''

n The Common Agricultural Policy - a dietary disaster. Consumer Policy Review Vol8 No3 from the Consumers' Association.