`Europe’s Farm to Fork Strategy Moves Closer to Becoming Law - Olive Oil Times
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Europe’s Farm to Fork Strategy Moves Closer to Becoming Law

By Ephantus Mukundi
Sep. 30, 2021 14:00 UTC

The European Parliament’s agri­cul­ture and envi­ron­ment com­mit­tees have voted to adopt the European Commission’s report on the Farm to Fork Strategy. Twenty mem­bers voted against the report while 10 abstained.

“There is a need for enhanced sus­tain­abil­ity in all stages of the food chain and every­one from farm­ers to con­sumers has a role to play,” pol­i­cy­mak­ers said. ​“A shift in con­sump­tion towards more healthy diets is also needed.”

Two-thirds of E.U. con­sumers have told us they are will­ing to eat more sus­tain­ably but face hur­dles, thus we are glad MEPs rec­og­nized the need to make it easy for con­sumers to turn words into deeds.- Camille Perrin, senior food pol­icy offi­cer, European Consumer Organization

“Overconsumption of meat and highly processed foods with high salt, sugar and fat con­tent must be addressed,” they added.

See Also:Europe Introduces Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Half by 2030

The adop­tion of the report paved the way for the strat­egy to be tabled before the full par­lia­ment for debate. According to the European Commission, this is likely to hap­pen in October dur­ing one of the ple­nary ses­sions.

Members of the European Parliament wel­comed the report say­ing that it was one step closer to pro­vid­ing high qual­ity, afford­able, ani­mal friendly, healthy foods to the European con­sumers.

“Two-thirds of E.U. con­sumers have told us they are will­ing to eat more sus­tain­ably but face hur­dles, thus we are glad MEPs rec­og­nized the need to make it easy for con­sumers to turn words into deeds,” said Camille Perrin, the European Consumer Organization’s senior food pol­icy offi­cer fol­low­ing the vote.

Highlights of the Commission’s Farm to Fork Strategy include sci­ence-based ani­mal wel­fare indi­ca­tors aimed at phas­ing out cruel prac­tices, such as the use of cages for ani­mals. It also empha­sizes high stan­dards and bet­ter meth­ods of cap­tur­ing, trans­port­ing and slaugh­ter­ing marine ani­mals.

In addi­tion, the strat­egy sets an ambi­tious tar­get in organic farm­ing with the inten­tion of increas­ing agri­cul­tural land ded­i­cated to organic farm­ing in the E.U. by at least 25 per­cent.

Under the organic farm­ing strat­egy, the Commission seeks to reduce the use of pes­ti­cides by 50 per­cent and cut down fer­til­izer usage by 20 per­cent.

The Farm to Fork Strategy was first pre­sented in May 2020. The strat­egy listed 27 mea­sures aimed at facil­i­tat­ing greener, health­ier, more secure and robust sys­tems in all stages of food pro­duc­tion.

However, not every­one in Europe is happy with the strat­egy. Copa-Cogeca, Europe’s largest farm­ers’ union, said it did not sup­port the ini­tia­tive due to a lack of impact assess­ments for farm­ers.

“Environmental sus­tain­abil­ity can­not be dis­con­nected from social and eco­nomic sus­tain­abil­ity, and this syn­ergy goes fur­ther with incre­men­tal and prag­matic tar­gets,” Copa-Cogeca said.

While the union con­ceded that the strat­egy does address impor­tant issues, includ­ing car­bon farm­ing and trade, Copa-Cogeca warned some pro­pos­als crossed ​“red lines.”

“However, a lim­ited but very impact­ful num­ber of pro­pos­als, approved today by the vote of the agri­cul­tural and envi­ron­men­tal com­mit­tees, cross the red lines and quite sim­ply call into ques­tion our food sov­er­eignty, the future of our agri­cul­ture and our rural areas,” the union said.

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