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Panorama Farm certainly deserves its name. The farmhouse overlooks the gentle green slopes of in southern Germany - the sort of landscape urban dwellers dream of visiting at the weekend.

Beautiful it may be, but it is not exactly land for planting wheat or other big-money crops. It's mostly pasture and I can just about make out the pale white of Charolais and the black flanks of Aberdeen Angus cattle in the distance. In one corner I can see the farm's latest enterprise, a field of pick-your-own strawberries. The two Fellmann brothers are examining the crop with satisfaction - deep luscious red. I can exclusively report they are delicious.

It's a family farm and the Fellmanns have been farmers for at least three generations. But should European policy-makers let the farm stay in business? Or is it - and thousands of farms in 27 countries - unwittingly damaging farmers in poorer parts of the world?

Thomas and Johannes Fellmann clearly like each other and get on well, but sharply disagree when it comes to farm subsidies. They look different too, and no wonder. Johannes, the older brother, is tanned a dark brown by the sun and the wind. He's obviously out in all weathers, looking after his strawberries and cows.

Thomas is pale, and although he started out helping on the farm he now spends most of his time lecturing or behind a computer at the , half an hour's drive away in Stuttgart.

Johannes says he need subsidies to survive. "I wouldn't call it a subsidy. It's payment for services we provide. We need compensation here in Europe and in Germany in particular, because we have high environmental standards which make production considerably more expensive than in other countries. And there are food standards we have set out in law, so we depend on these payments."

But Dr Thomas Fellmann doesn't agree. He has studied the for the last 10 years and his thesis was on the direct payments scheme. He says it is good the farm is diversifying into crops like strawberries, because they make a profit on the open market. He thinks with high food prices everywhere now is the time for EU policy-makers to cut the aid, not least because of the damage it does in the developing world.

He says: "It's hard to explain to them. Behind every farm there is at least one family and if they are affected it is a problem. They might say 'Hey, what are the people in the third world to do with this? How could we affect them?' But they do. What you export is your surplus, so it is dumped, sold cheaply on the world market. If we do that in the long run there is no incentive to farmers in the developing world to grow more, to enhance their technology to grow more. And they can't produce enough food in these countries."

Thomas has been telling me with affection about his father, how he is meant to be retired but is always out working on the farm because there is always something to be done. Dad is a vigorous man in his seventies who clearly enjoys mucking in with the hard physical work.

But Thomas says he can't use his family to justify a bad policy. "In general I don't like subsidies. If farmers can't make a living then they have to leave the sector. This is hard for the farmers, but it doesn't make sense to give them money and go on with that support if they still can't make a living out of farming.

"Of course personally it would be very hard for my brother, indeed for me, it would hurt me, if they had to close the farm. But if they cannot make their living out of farming they should close the farm."

While we talk two pretty little girls - Johannes's two- and four-year-old daughters - come out to look curiously at the funny men with cameras piling into the strawberries and pretzel the family have generously provided as a midday snack.

Thomas adds: "The worst thing that could happen is that one of his daughters will run the farm just because they get subsidies. You could go on like that for generations and it's very difficult to stop."

Johannes replies: "I am interested obviously in what goes on in the third world and we have to take it into account. But I have my own family to feed, so it's important to me too that we make ends meet here."

It is likely that the policy of European politicians, despite the efforts of some in the Commission, will be "charity begins at home".

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