During a debate in Luxembourg on Monday 16 April, EU agriculture ministers declared that progress had been made in implementing the conclusions of the June 2016 Council on the reduction of food waste (see EUROPE 11993).
The Agriculture Council and the European Commission, however, acknowledged that it was necessary to step up efforts at national and European level to reach the targets set out in the United Nations sustainable development programme, namely to reduce the volume of food waste from all production and supply chains by half, by 2030.
The Bulgarian Presidency of the Council circulated a film showing that about one third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, at a cost of €850 billion annually to the global economy.
A number of delegations (Italy, Belgium, Malta and Greece) said the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) could play a more significant role in helping to reduce food wastage and waste. In that context, the Greek minister, Evangelos Apostolou, applauded the proposal aimed at combating unfair trade practices.
Several ministers (from Estonia, Sweden, Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Germany) recommended setting up a common method for measuring levels of food wastage, thus allowing comparable data to be collected between member states and uniform definitions at European level.
European Commissioner for Health Vytenis Andriukaitis said that a method for assessing levels of food waste will be finalised at the end of the year and ready by March 2019. Concerning the future CAP, the Commission “is reflecting how a reformed CAP could help reduce food losses and waste by stimulating more efficient production, processing and storage practices and the evolution towards a circular bio-economy”.
The next EU platform for the prevention of food loss and waste will be held on the sidelines of the AgroBalt 2018 event in Vilnius, on 24 May this year. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)