In adopting its opinion on the ‘Biodiversity strategy 2030’ on Thursday 4 March, the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture points out that a large part of Europe’s biodiversity is the result of agriculture and that its survival therefore depends on the continued active management of agricultural land.
The opinion, adopted by the Committee on Agriculture with 35 votes in favour, 8 against and 5 abstentions, will be sent to the Committee on Environment, which is the lead committee on the dossier. The vote in the Committee on Environment is provisionally scheduled for 22 April.
The Committee on Agriculture reiterates its call on the European Commission to present a fully substantiated assessment of the implementation of the measures and objectives of the strategy, in particular the individual and cumulative impacts on the social and economic sustainability of EU farming, on food security and food prices and on the potential risks of displacing biodiversity losses to non-EU Member States by replacing local production with imports.
However, these warnings do not prevent the MEPs from supporting one of the central objectives of the strategy: to achieve at least 10% of areas of high diversity. To this end, they call on Member States to put in place the necessary measures in the framework of their strategic plans under the common agricultural policy (CAP).
“Agriculture has an important role to play in preserving and promoting biodiversity and I welcome the ambition of the strategy, which encourages action at all levels. Farmers need to be included and heard in the implementation of the measures and the social dimension must be part of the solution”, said rapporteur Isabel Carvalhais (S&D, Portugal). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)