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In an effort to bring fair­ness and trans­parency to the food sup­ply chain through­out the European Union mem­ber states, the European Commission has put for­ward a draft for a new reg­u­la­tion to map how prices of food prod­ucts are shaped all the way from the field to the super­mar­ket shelves.

The reg­u­la­tion will require col­lect­ing and com­par­ing mar­ket rates which, in con­junc­tion with other data, will high­light inter­me­di­ary costs includ­ing trans­port, insur­ance, and stor­age. This infor­ma­tion will equip farm­ers with the abil­ity for bet­ter man­age­ment and deci­sion mak­ing that will ulti­mately lead to a more trust­wor­thy envi­ron­ment for pro­duc­ers, medi­a­tors, and even­tu­ally con­sumers.

The pro­posed mea­sure will cover the fruit and veg­eta­bles, arable crops, meat, eggs, dairy, sugar, and olive oil. It will use exist­ing data col­lec­tion sys­tems and pro­ce­dures already oper­at­ing in the mem­ber states to com­pile the required infor­ma­tion.

Each mem­ber state will be respon­si­ble for gath­er­ing the buy and sell prices (both whole­sale and retail) of food prod­ucts such as wheat, rye, olive oil and edi­ble olives, meat, milk, wine, rice, sugar and fruits, along with other data includ­ing the esti­mated and actual yield, exist­ing stock and cul­ti­vated land. Then, all the infor­ma­tion will be sent to the Commission head­quar­ters in Brussels to pub­lish it on its agri-food data por­tal and the E.U. mar­ket obser­va­to­ries.

Depending on the prod­uct, prices and the rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion must be assem­bled either weekly or monthly in a timely and accu­rate way, the Commission explained. Specifically for olive oil the data should be col­lected and dis­patched weekly, while for its organic coun­ter­part and table olives the process should take place once a month.

Brussels is already mon­i­tor­ing olive oil prices in coun­tries, includ­ing Spain and Italy, where prices in the for­mer have dropped sub­stan­tially in recent months, while prices in Italy con­tinue to rise.

The European Commission has also sug­gested that the mem­ber states extract the nec­es­sary data from big com­pa­nies and avoid putting extra bur­den on small and medium-sized enter­prises.

Phil Hogan, the Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner, acknowl­edged the cru­cial role of small farm­ers in the E.U. and the need for just pro­ce­dures.

“Strengthening the posi­tion of farm­ers in the food sup­ply chain has been a pri­or­ity for the Commision,” he said. ​“Enhancing mar­ket trans­parency will allow equal access to and greater clar­ity about price infor­ma­tion, mak­ing our food chain fairer and bet­ter bal­anced. These new rules will com­ple­ment the recently adopted direc­tive ban­ning unfair trad­ing prac­tices in empow­er­ing weaker and smaller actors of the food sup­ply chain and their intro­duc­tion reflects the very sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic sup­port that there is through­out the E.U. to strengthen the role of farmer in the food sup­ply chain.”

The reg­u­la­tion is part of the E.U.’s wider pol­icy to estab­lish hon­est and clear trans­ac­tions in the food sec­tor, con­tin­u­ing from last year when leg­is­la­tion was issued to ban unfair trade prac­tices such as last minute order can­cel­la­tions and late pay­ments, and intro­duce tools to improve farm­ers coop­er­a­tion like writ­ten con­tracts for agreed prices and user-friendly risk man­age­ment tools.

The pro­posed reg­u­la­tion draft will be open for pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion until June 19. After the final text of the reg­u­la­tion is pub­lished in the Οfficial Journal of the European Union, all mem­ber states will be obliged to put it into force within six months.

• European Commission


• Kathimerini