The European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture will meet on Monday 8 September in Strasbourg to try to agree on stronger measures to reinforce the position of farmers in the food supply chain (see EUROPE 13653/8).
The rapporteur, Céline Imart (EPP, French), negotiated a series of compromise amendments (https://aeur.eu/f/i9t ) with the shadow rapporteurs from the other political groups, aimed at ensuring a reduction in unfair practices through transparency and compulsory contracts, better remuneration for farmers through prices covered by production costs, and support for small-scale farms and young farmers.
The amendments provide for compulsory written contracts in the dairy sector: a written contract is required for all deliveries of milk and dairy products between a farmer (or producer organisation) and a processor, collector, distributor or retailer. A minimum contract content is suggested (volume, quality, quantity and delivery schedule), as well as rules for a transparent price (including all payments and discounts and calculated on the basis of objective indicators, such as production costs, inflation and quality).
The duration of the contract would be a minimum of 6 months, with a revision clause in the event of unforeseen circumstances (climatic events, geopolitical crises). There are exceptions: contracts not required for micro-businesses, deliveries simultaneous with sales or products that cannot be marketed.
It is planned to extend the requirement for written contracts to all agricultural products, but with numerous derogations. Member States are expected to establish voluntary and impartial mechanisms for resolving contractual disputes.
Collective bargaining. Producer organisations (POs) could negotiate contracts on behalf of their members under certain conditions: - volume of production covered less than 10% of total EU production (or less than 33% for a Member State); - no double membership of several POs for the same product; - derogation for small Member States (< 500,000 tonnes of milk/year, or not exceeding 45% of the total national production of that Member State).
Transparency and fairness. Strict conditions are laid down for the use of the term ‘fair’, including the prior consent of the farmer or his organisation, stable commercial relations (long contracts), remunerative prices for farmers (based on production costs and indicators from the European Agri-Food Supply Chain Observatory) and contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The proposed criteria for ‘short circuit’ are: geographical proximity or limited number of intermediaries between producer and consumer, and the possibility of online or cross-border sales. The Commission would also assess the feasibility of an EU label for short-distance products.
Producer organisations. It is proposed that non-recognised POs should be able to negotiate contracts for 5 years after their application for recognition. PO Associations could negotiate contracts for their members, subject to non-competition and compliance with production thresholds (≤ 33% per Member State, ≤ 5% for the EU).
A compromise amendment also provides for a crisis management tool to redirect organic surpluses towards conventional markets, and several individual amendments are of real interest, such as the ‘mirror’ clause on pesticide residues, an amendment on the ban on bypassing POs and another on sector-by-sector crisis management plans.
Link to other amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/i9u (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)