MEPS FEND OFF STRONG AGRIINDUSTRY LOBBYING AND CLAIM NEW STRATEGY WILL DELIVER MORE SUSTAINABLE, HEALTHY, ANIMAL-FRIENDLY AND LOCAL FOOD PRODUCTION

With a large majority, the European Parliament has adopted a resolution supporting one of the cornerstones of the European Commission’s Green Deal, the Farm to Fork Strategy, at the second October plenary session.

ENVI and AGRI committees worked together on Parliament’s contribution to a strategy that aims to bring the agricultural sector together with consumer and food policy in a greener and more sustainable way.

For ENVI rapporteur Anja Hazekamp (NL, The Left), the vote represented nothing less than a paradigm shift: “Parliament has recognised that intensive livestock farming increases the risk of zoonoses. This is a historic moment because until now criticism of intensive livestock farming was taboo in Brussels”.

The S&D Group’s First Vice-President Eric Andrieu (FR), called Farm to Fork an “ambitious plan that could allow Europe to keep its environmental promises and biodiversity protection” and, highlighted that “with binding objectives for member states, Farm to Fork defends the precautionary principle for new GMOs and defends mandatory nutritional labelling”.

Sarah Wiener, the Greens/EFA Group’s ENVI shadow rapporteur, agreed about the ground breaking nature of Farm to Fork, as the strategy “is the first to take a holistic view of food production in EU policy, from the ground to the field to the plate”.

Parliament’s biggest group, the

EPP, was not united on the issue, with a majority voting in favour but a significant number also voting against or abstaining.

EPP ENVI shadow Christine Schneider (DE), who supported the resolution, stated as her group’s main achievement had been to ensure “that this strategy has not become one of prohibition, but that incentives are being set up which affect every link in the food supply chain.”

The critics of Parliament’s resolution within the EPP Group mainly came from the French and the Spanish delegations. French AGRI member Anne Sander explained her vote against by commenting: “I refuse to give a blank check to the Commission which is not playing fair.”

The resolution was also subject to concentrated stakeholders’ efforts to see their interests represented. The Greens pointed, in particular, to the biggest European agricultural sector association, and were happy to report that its efforts went largely ignored. Austrian MEP Thomas Waitz tweeted: “We defeated all attempts from @COPACOGECA of watering the text down!”.

Next up for the ENVI and AGRI committees is the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which will be voted on in the second plenary session in November.