Month: July 2023

NGTs: DIFFERENT REACTIONS TO THE NGTS REGULATION PROPOSAL

Posted on - Posted by Farm Europe

On the 5th of July, the European commission presented a proposal for a « Regulation of the european parliament and of the council on plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques and their food and feed ». This proposal provides a good working basis on this file to boost innovation, and meet the health, climate and environmental challenges. Now, this proposal will be discussed under co-decision by the European Parliament and Council. Both ComENVI and ComAGRI will be involved until the end of this mandate. Most probably it will be up to the next Parliament to finalise the deal and negotiate with the Council

Full note available at Farm Europe’s Members site

Nature restoration law: a major setback for VP Frans Timmermans

Posted on - Posted by Farm Europe

Whatever the outcome of the vote on the Nature Restoration Law in Strasbourg tomorrow, the situation of extreme polarisation of the debate is already a major failure for Vice-President Frans Timmermans and his personal vision of implementing the Green Deal and Farm to Fork.

Ultimately, it raises the question of a European Commission that claims to be « political », and no longer has the capacity to play its role as “honest broker”, able to facilitate dialogue and to shape compromises leaving no one behind. The inclusion of agriculture in this text raises questions as far as the co-legislators have just reached an agreement via the Common Agricultural Policy on important points included again in the Nature Restoration Law. This creates mistrust in the political decision-making and the feeling among the farming community that the European Commission is coming back via the back door, despite the political balances recently established.

The Nature Restoration Law is far from being the only text aimed at protecting natural resources. The aim of this law is above all to bring the protection of biodiversity and environmental policy under the jurisdiction of the Courts, placing a legal risk on the Member States and political leaders, and ultimately to put pressure on all those in direct contact with natural resources, in particular farmers, fishermen and foresters.

In this respect, Article 16 proposed by the European Commission (which makes it easier for individuals to take legal action against political leaders) is indicative of this approach: with this law, it is not a question of encouraging and promoting a positive dynamic. It’s not about incentives, it’s about sanctions. The European Commission is positioning itself as a supervisor who validates or distributes sanctions, without taking any political responsibility for defining the path to achieving the targets — the how to implement transitions —, and if necessary relying on the courts. The European Commission would approve national plans.

No political group, with the exception of the Greens and part of the far left, feels truly comfortable with the approach defined by the European Commission. An analysis of the amendments tabled in plenary bears this out.

  • The EPP profoundly rejects this text. In the end, it decided that there was no point in trying to improve the draft law. It has tabled a motion to reject it.
  • It is joined in this approach by the ECR and ID groups. The ECR also tabled amendments aimed at deleting the 10% target for areas of ecological interest (equivalent to set-aside land) and deleting the “butterfly” indicator, which would force Member States to observe the growth of certain species.
  • The Renew Europe group is attempting a compromise by proposing the Council’s general approach, a proposal which does not, however, resolve the most divisive agricultural issues.
  • In addition, individual MEPs from Renew Europe and the Socialists tabled amendments on these subjects in order to limit the potential negative impact on agriculture, and in particular the deletion of any reference to the 10% target.
  • The Greens support the overall approach of the Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans.

However, no amendments were tabled in relation to the recital making “extensive agriculture” the alpha and omega of an effective environmental policy. Yet this type of approach, which moves towards de-growth in agricultural production, poses a problem, not only from a food sovereignty point of view but also from the point of view of protecting natural resources. It would mean more land being farmed, and therefore more deforestation and less biodiversity. Following this “extensification” path, the nature restoration law would be bad for nature.

Our analysis of the initial proposal is available here.

Positive NGTs proposal, very weak assessment on pesticides

Posted on - Posted by Farm Europe

In the context of today’s adoption of the Sustainable use of key natural resources package, Farm Europe welcomes the European Commission’s proposal on NGTs, which paves the way for innovation and research dynamism in the agricultural sector. However, this good proposal should not overshadow the weak additional impact study on the proposed regulation on the sustainable use of pesticides which is heavy in length, light in content, and embarrassing for sectors qualified as non-essential. 

The NGTs proposal opens up many possibilities for research centers, small and medium-sized enterprises that will be able – thanks to the reduction of red tape – to develop new plant varieties that meet the demand for greater sustainability, disease resistance and reduced use of inputs.

We note that compared to the version circulated in recent days, the European Commission has decided to remove the restriction for herbicide-tolerant NGTs. Although the political point was clear and echoed past mistakes made with GMOs, it could have represented discrimination without a legal basis. To avoid this, a restriction was introduced in the proposal on plant reproductive material for all (not only in NGTs) herbicide-tolerant varieties, which will have to comply with some conditions (e.g. crop rotation) that the Commission will better specify in a delegated act, to avoid an increase in herbicide use.

We regret that organic production will not be able to take advantage of NGTs and their potential aid for more sustainable agriculture. This would have been a positive possibility for a sector that has reached maturity and finds it difficult to expand further as the Commission intended. 

Although we evaluate the Commission’s proposal as a whole positively, we would like to stress that we are far from widespread and decisive use of these techniques in due time, firstly because it will take at least 2-3 years for the regulation to be approved (also considering the break for the European elections) and secondly, whether the research was not started in advance of the development of the EU regulation, it takes more than 5 years to create an NGT variety for a species whose genome is known, and this without mentioning the time it takes to renew an orchard or vineyard in the case of perennial crops.

So, contrary to what Vice-President Timmermans implies, this important legislative framework on NGTs cannot be used as a bargaining chip to get regulations such as the one on the sustainable use of pesticides, which have many problems, approved.

Disappointing additional impact assessment on pesticides

We recall that just today the Commission published its response to the Council’s request of 19 December 2022 for an additional impact study on the proposed regulation on the sustainable use of pesticides. 

The document, which claims to be serious mainly because of its length (220 pages), is in fact easily summarised: the Commission does not present any new studies and has not carried out any additional quantitative analysis. It merely downplays all the prestigious studies that indicate a drop in productivity as a consequence of the Commission’s proposals. 

In the absence of a serious scientific approach, the European Commission is content to claim that its legislative proposals on pesticides will pose no problem either in terms of food safety or in terms of reducing production thanks to the expansion of organic production, thanks to the reduction of pesticides on non-agricultural land and thanks to NGTs, techniques that are very useful but which, as we have pointed out, will not be available any time soon.

But the most puzzling statement in this study is that the European Commission recognizes that it is true that there will be a drop in productivity, but it will be mainly in those productions such as grapes (and therefore wine), tomatoes and hops that do not impact on food security. 

According to the Commission, if there is a loss of income, farmers will be able to cover the costs with CAP support (again!). These statements are very disrespectful to the agricultural sector which for years has been asked to be both more market-oriented and more environmentally sustainable, with a CAP budget that has shrunk considerably over the years and which today, due to inflation, is losing even more of its value.

LIVESTOCK IN THE UE – PERIODIC NEWS

Posted on - Posted by Farm Europe

The European Parliament’s Environment Committee has adopted its position on the proposed revision of the IED Directive. The thresholds adopted by MEPs are: 200 LU for pigs and poultry, 250 LU for mixed farms and 300 LU for cattle, with extensive livestock farming excluded. For the record, the EP’s Agriculture Committee had excluded ruminant livestock farming from the draft directive. The outcome of the vote at the July plenary session remains open.

Some of the EU’s agricultural imports from Ukraine have increased considerably in the last year and are putting pressure on regional markets, particularly the EU poultry sector.

EFSA recently organised a scientific symposium to assess the safety of foods derived from cell cultures. The main objective was to ensure that EFSA’s risk assessment is adequate to guarantee the safety of foods derived from cell cultures. A detailed report including conclusions and recommendations for the future is expected to be published in the coming months. Over and above the issues discussed at this meeting, the central question to be debated at political level remains the relevance of the novel food regulation and its procedure for dealing with the marketing authorisation of such products.

Last month, the European Commission approved the Dutch government’s proposed programme to buy out “polluting farms” in order to reduce the country’s nitrogen emissions, in line with its commitments. This programme is being fiercely contested by Dutch farmers.

The Irish Department of Agriculture is considering slaughtering 200,000 cows to reduce emissions from agriculture by a quarter by 2030. Irish farmers are strongly opposed to the government’s proposal.

The French livestock sector is concerned by the recent recommendation of the French Court of Auditors, which proposes “a reduction strategy” for the cattle herd to reduce France’s carbon footprint.

Finally, the law on mandatory labelling of livestock, presented by the Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, was adopted by the German Bundestag. Changes to the building code were also approved.

Full note available on FE Members’ area