The difficulty of the task of ensuring the right balance between sustainable food and sustainable agriculture became clear on Monday 25 January, when co-rapporteurs Anja Hazekamp (GUE/NGL, the Netherlands) and Herbert Dorfmann (EPP, Italy) presented their draft report on the farm to fork strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system (see EUROPE 12632/19), at a joint meeting of the European Parliament’s Committees on Environment (ENVI) and Agriculture (AGRI).
MEPs all agreed that the report was a good starting point and that the Farm to Fork strategy was an opportunity to be seized. However, right-wing MEPs warned that agriculture could be on the chopping block if all players—including consumers—do not play their part.
Ms Hazekamp stressed the report’s concrete recommendations to significantly reduce the climate and environmental footprint of our food system, including by legislating a reduction in the use of pesticides and antibiotics and ending subsidies to intensive and industrial agriculture. “We need to stimulate local and organic products and switch to more plant proteins, as a way of fighting climate change and deforestation in the EU and outside”, she stated. Clear consumer information through labelling with nutrient profiles would be a useful complement to the system.
Mr Dorfmann sees the strategy as a useful tool for securing the supply of food from the farmer to the consumer, for rethinking the supply chain and for thinking about the proper distribution of costs and benefits as well as responsibilities from farm to fork. However, in his view, this distribution is not equitable. He therefore advocates quantified targets in the areas of processing and consumers and support for farmers.
More organic agriculture is possible, provided that consumers are willing to buy.
In addition, while agriculture should “have a positive attitude towards reducing inputs and limiting mineral inputs and the leaching of agricultural products into the water table, but we have to start from where we are now”, he stressed. The current use of antibiotics, which differs greatly from one country to another, but also within existing legislation, must be taken into account. As legislation has already been passed to reduce the use of antibiotics, there is no need more, he said. As for farming, he is of the opinion that it is advisable to focus on research to find new methods for the future.
Believing that the strategy puts all the burden on farmers, Mazaly Aguilar (ECR, Spain) has called for less ambitious and more realistic goals.
According to her, “the main objective should be that all agriculture, whatever its production model, can improve its profitability and its contribution to the environment. It is a big conceptual mistake to think that the only model that can provide solutions to the sustainability of agriculture is the environmental model”.
The debate has only just begun. “The aim is to address multiple challenges and respond to different issues with an integrated and coherent policy response, covering financial, trade, pesticide regulation and animal welfare aspects. The aim is to arrive at a single European Parliament point of view. This will make us stronger in the plenary”, summed up Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, France) on behalf of the ENVI Committee.
This will require “squaring the circle”, said AGRI Committee Chairman Norbert Lins (EPP, Germany), citing ecological and economic aspects, consumer responsibility (consumer behaviour and resources), international relations and organic agriculture. An expert hearing is scheduled for 4 February. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)