The EU’s agricultural cooperatives and organisations (Copa-Cogeca) announced, on Monday 7 March, that “in the coming days” the Ukrainian National Agrarian Forum (UNAF) “will join the European farming community” by becoming a partner of Copa and Cogeca.
Ramon Armengol, President of Cogeca, said that welcoming our Ukrainian colleagues to Copa and Cogeca is “the natural extension of this expression of solidarity that is taking place on the ground by farmers and their cooperatives”.
“Farmers are starting to welcome refugees to their farms, the first convoys organised by farmers are on their way, along with food, supplies and financial donations”, explains Copa-Cogeca.
Copa and Cogeca held a coordination meeting with their members on the humanitarian situation arising from the war in Ukraine and the EU’s response.
Shield. “Since the Russian government is using food security as a weapon, we must counter it with a food shield. We strongly believe that it is possible to strengthen our strategic autonomy while continuing to make progress on sustainability”, said the President of Copa, Christiane Lambert.
Copa and Cogeca are asking to be able to cultivate “all available land in 2022 to compensate for the blockage of Russian and Ukrainian production”. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)