The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
No coronavirus link to our food
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has said there is no evidence food poses a coronavirus risk. The organisation responsible for all EU food safety issues says food is neither a source of the virus nor a means of transmission. Its chief scientist says this conclusion is not only based on the current outbreak, but on past experience and research with SARS and Middle-East Respiratory syndrome.
This reflects comments from the European Centre for Disease Protection and Control that while animals in China were the initial vector for the disease, the spread and all future infections were from person to person contact.
Ironically EFSA is based in Parma in
Italy, so finds itself dispensing advice from a complete lockdown situation.
Meanwhile, despite reports of some products shortages on supermarket shelves, the International Food Policy
Research Institute says there is no evidence the virus is driving food shortages, even in affected areas including China. It says it has no concerns about staple products but warns that some high value foods are being affected by distribution problems and panic buying.
Meanwhile, the pressure for the reformed Conmmon Agricultural Policy (Cap) to drive a shift away from livestock production has been intensified by a group of scientists claiming this would be best way to protect biodiversity and fight climate change. This is a boost for activists groups seeking to make meat eating socially unacceptable. More than 3,500 scientists signed the letter, but not all are from Europe.
The campaign has been coordinated by a German green science group and it calls for a shift in Cap priorities to sustainable agriculture and the delivery of public goods. These would be in the shape of payments for measurable gains for the environment. This adds to a sense that in the EU-27 and the UK the emphasis of support models is moving away from food production.
Finally, tractor sales rose in the EU last year, according to the organisation that represents manufacturers. Sales were up by 5% on 2018. The figures are based on registration figures from member states, with quads and teleporters removed. This gave a figure of around 155,000 tractors of which around a third were 50HP and below, however the statistics were skewed by avoiding new legislation. This saw a surge in preregistrations in December 2017 and if that is excluded sales were stable between 2018 and 2019. The biggest markets in the EU are France and Germany.