As the Russian invasion to Ukraine goes on, food markets are still experiencing the repercussions of the conflict, notably on grains and oilseeds. EU ministers of agriculture supported the initiative to postpone the crop rotation requirement to 2024, and well as approved lump sum payment through the EAFRD fund to support farmers. The Commission keeps the Green Deal objectives high on its agenda, but pressure is made to derogate them from co-legislators and stakeholders.
On animal welfare, a study from the Commission reveals that the CAP efforts in this sector did not contribute enough to the reduction of antimicrobial use nor to the improvement of animal welfare at large. In parallel, NGO attacks the decision of expanding crop production for animal feed.
In Asia, several countries have adopted – or are about to adopt – nutritional labelling solutions, such as Japan, where the government introduced a voluntary scheme for alcoholic beverages, or in Singapore, where beverages industries adopted the ‘Nutri-Grade’ to inform consumers about the nutritional quality of the beverage. Meanwhile, research in China shows that Chinese consumers would tend to prefer a ‘traffic-light’ design for a possible labelling on food.
The expansion of the synthetic foods industry is growing, with Israeli start up committed to scale-up processing and reduce costs, Impossible food products that hit the UK market, Austrian start up that developed the first automated process platform to produce fermented casein, and trends in meat consumption that lower in Germany.
During the Queen’s speech in the UK, a definitive opening towards gene-edited was assured by the government and the Queen herself. At the same time, Argentina allows the commercialization of trans-genic wheat, and Egypt starts the firs harvest of a salinity-resistant wheat.
In the EU, the Commission opened for public consultation on the legislative initiative to regulate the outcomes of new genetic techniques. The consultation runs until July 22. The debate on NGTs sees German ONG gathering signatures for a petition to stop “deregulat[ion of] new genomic techniques”, supported by MEP Häusling.
After one year of activities, the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) reached its conclusions on the recommendations on the future steps the European Union will take in the world of tomorrow.
Farm Europe welcomes both the open and democratic process that led to the conclusions as well as the balanced and forward looking conclusions that emerged from the conference in relation to the agriculture and food systems. These recommandations will certainly be an important contribution to the future sustainable food systems strategy.
The concepts of sustainability, circularity, fairness, affordability, investments in research and innovation in the field of agriculture and nutrition policies are anchored in the recommandations and largely confirm the relevance of the current EU Treaties when it comes to agriculture and the need for a strong Common Agricultural Policy that delivers on their expectations. The Conference advocates for a balanced approach promoting effective environment and climate friendly agriculture in the EU, showing openness to a wide range of solutions as long as they put Europe in a position to « produce more food with less whilst reducing emissions and environmental impact but still guaranteeing productivity and food security », which is the most challenging equilibrium to find for policy makers. The Citizens also call to step up the effort to achieve climate goals incentivising agricultural systems like « organic farming and sustainable agriculture » and to introduce a certification of carbon removals, based on robust, solid and transparent carbon accounting».
Regarding the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, the complexity of the topic is well reflected in the recommandations of the Citizens. They are calling to « significantly reduce the use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers, in line with the existing targets while still ensuring food security ». Citizens also want to address more specific topics such as plastic use in agriculture.
When it comes to the livestock sector, they call for « reasoned breeding and meat production with a focus on animal welfare and sustainability, focusing in particular on clear labelling and high standard and common norms for animal farming and transport.
In addition, the Conference also see the EU agricultural sector as an energy provider. It encourages the development of electric cars, but also underlines that « at the same time, it should invest in the development of other non-polluting technologies, such as biofuels and hydrogen for those vehicles whose electrification is difficult to achieve, such as boats and lorries ».
As far as health promotion, the reflection groups considers food -and diet- as a tool to improve health, approaching health from an holistic approach. Notably, the Conference rises the attention on the importance of education on the topic of food, diet, nutrition from an early age, as well as underlying the impacts of ultra-processed foods on health, proposing a tax on those products that have detrimental effects on health. The recommendations do not provide clear definition of ‘healthy diets’, and ‘healthy lifestyle’, leaving this to personal interpretation.
The CoFoE concluded that food production should be guided by the principles of sustainability, climate responsibility, affordability, safety, and social justice, while aiming at food security and to the safeguard of biodiversity and of ecosystems. Moreover, the Conference commits to ensure that all Europeans have access to education on healthy food and access to healthy and affordable food, as a building block of a healthy lifestyle. The round of talks proposes, in concrete to:
Educate people about healthy habits from an early age
Develop at EU level a standard educational program on healthy lifestyles
Taxation on non healthy processed food
Promotion of healthy, varied, and affordable food procurement
Promote production methods that allow to produce more food with less
Apply circular economy principles and fight food waste
Reduce the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers & invest in research
Introduce carbon removal certification
Improve the social side of farming, assuring high quality safety, health and working conditions
Enforce animal welfare standards
Improve transparency and communication to consumers
Protect insects and pollinators
Support reforestation, afforestation, enforce responsible forest management
Ban single use plastics
Protect water sources
Stakeholders from all across Europe and from all backgrounds — including Farm Europe — were consulted during the process. The Conference reached its conclusions in the fields of climate change and the environment, health, economy and social justice, the role of the EU in the world, education, democracy, migration, culture, digital transportations and the values, rights, rule of law and security.
The crisis in Ukraine and its geopolitical consequences are leading to an increase in feed prices, production costs, energy and gas costs, which is putting a strain on European livestock farms. States continue to provide emergency aid to support farmers. Spain, which is particularly concerned by the consequences for monogastric farms, has set up several aids.
In the beef sector, a drop in meat production and a stagnation in milk production is expected. The pig sector is experiencing a delicate situation, with a drop in meat prices and the consequences of the international situation. In the poultry sector, the outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza has led to the slaughter of 15 million animals in France, which encouraged the Commission to address the issue of vaccination.
Tensions on the feed market – particularly maize – are a reminder of the structural deficit between supply and demand in the EU. A drop in world production is also expected next year.
Europeans are therefore putting in place measures to allow the production of this food. In the short term, with stocks accumulating in Ukraine, the Commission is trying to find other ways than the inaccessible Black Sea ports to import Ukrainian grain.
On the link with the ecological transition, the Industrial Emissions Directive and the recent rule to take account of livestock farming considered as industrial are criticised for the apparent disconnection with reality that it demonstrates.Finally, other concerns relate to animal welfare, to a new European Citizens’ Initiative criticising the aid allocated to livestock farming and to the development of non-meat alternatives on the market (vegetable alternatives and cultivated meat).
Joe Biden just decided a few days ago to increase the blending of biofuels in the United States to step up the climate ambition and help the American families struggling with high pump prices. At European level, key negotiations are taking place now, and the pressure from NGOs lobbying for a radical 100% electro-mobility is very high to get a reduction of the crop cap, which is currently set at 7%. Nevertheless, many black and white arguments used in their narrative require to think twice, taking into account the reality of the agriculture sector.
Some are using the food versus fuel narrative to ask for a phasing out of conventional biofuels. This argument on food security is just wrong when it comes to conventional biofuels produced in Europe. With a very small share of farm land dedicated to biofuels in Europe, the processing through bio-refineries not only contributes to the energy supply, but also to the food and feed production.
Which other sector is in a position to achieve both energy and food sovereignty? Today, 13 million tonnes of high value proteins are coming from this dual supply chain – 30% of the total EU production of top-quality proteins that help reducing imports from South America. This creates a stable and predictable market for EU farmers. It helps them investing on their farm – including in the ecological transition and carbon farming practices.
Second, renewables made from EU agriculture already represent the equivalent of 8 nuclear plants (biogas), and fuel to 20 million of cars (biofuels). This is far from insignificant. This is a concrete and tangible solution to fight against climate change, reduce our dependency on Russian oil and gas. Even the IPCC underlined the need for biofuels in its recent wake up call report, referring to the Renewable Energy Directive in the EU as a good example of a sustainability framework helping to manage trade-offs and synergies between energy and food security. Via photosynthesis, agriculture is the biggest and most efficient solar industry, not using any imported rare earth!
Third, the biofuels are perhaps not a magic wand, but the European Union needs them to build an energy mix. They have a role to play, not only for climate reasons, but also for their cost-effectiveness. Biofuels today offer the most affordable solution for European families. Without changing their car, Europeans can reduce their emissions at a low cost – that’s probably why those willing to sell quickly a lot of electric cars fight so aggressively against them. Biofuels help reducing the fuel price at the pump by 10 cents.
Fourth, the ambition to develop advanced biofuels is most welcome, and the agricultural energy sector has already shown its willingness to invest. It is clear that the synergies between conventional and advanced biofuels are very important, including for logistical reasons. The overall biomass should be taken into account. The availability of waste and residues largely depends on the availability of crops. Less crops means less waste and residues. Reducing the cap would reduce agricultural outlets, reduce agricultural production, thus undermine the capacity to develop advanced solutions.
In the European Union, the coming weeks will provide the responses not only to those advocating on the climate ambition and on the capacity of its decision-makers to design a credible way forward, but also to investors willing to contribute to decarbonation. A new attempt to undermine biofuels in the EU would further undermine the flow of investments in the transition on the Continent, and certainly channel it elsewhere in the world. It would favour fossil fuels.
In April, the OIV has presented the latest state of play on the wine market with the recent trends in consumption, production and trade on both hemispheres. At the same time, France was hit once again by another spring frost this year cause headache to some of its winemakers. Furthermore, newly re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron laid down his vision for the French sector. In Italy, the Vinitaly exhibition was organised again after two years, and wine tourism was found to be an important driver once more. At the same time, India and Australia has signed an FTA giving some extra diversification to the Australian wines.
The scientific community has welcomed the results of more than 20 years of research that led to the completion of the sequencing of human genome. The discovery corrects thousands of structural errors in the previous reference genetic material.
In the EU, NGOs (notably in Germany and Austria) are keeping the media attention high on the matter of ‘de-regulation’ of GMOs restrictions, with the German secretary of state for agriculture taking clear position to defend the status quo. Belgium, on the other hand, shows more complacent position towards NGT by allowing three new gene edited maize varieties for field trial, while in the UK field experiments have been allowed for barley varieties.
Outside the EU, India allows for derogation of biosafety assessment of two gene edited crop varieties, and in the US a field experiment aiming at reducing the population of viruses-carriers mosquitoes through modified mosquitoes has shown positive results.
EFSA has published its final scientific opinion on nutrient profiling, an opinion that will influence the dossier of the front-of-package labelling initiative that the Commission is supposed to advance during the third semester of 2022. Furthermore, the same EU agency approved for human consumption a ‘novel food’ consisting in new protein-rich supplement.
While a study on the prices of fruit and vegetables finds out that consumers buy 15% less of them because of its 40% increased price compared to their marginal cost, in Germany, the federal minister is considering lowering to zero the VAT on fruit and vegetable as a response to the increase in food prices and incentivize their consumption within the framework of an healthy diets. Meanwhile, the Commission has opened feedback on alcoholic beverages taxation.
Outside the EU, Barbados has doubled its sugar-tax levy on soft drinks, and in the UK, the government has to deal with a legal case where it has been cited in court by Kellogg’s accused of illegally applying the rules on the restriction of HFSS foods. New research finds links between allulose/edulcorates and increased risk of cancer.
While the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is going on in the East of Europe, agricultural markets are still suffering its consequences, notably in the price raise of fertilizers and the possible shortages on the cereal markets. The EU institutions are discussing alternative solutions to the short-term problems that the conflict is creating within the EU agri-food chain following on last month’s Commission declaration of ‘Food Security’. Commissioner Wojciechowski repeatedly stressed the importance of reducing fertilizers dependency, while EU and national agricultural organizations call on the Commission for further support of the chain and derogations from the environmental obligations. The Executive Vice-President of the European Commission contested that the war in Ukraine has any impact on food security in front of the ENVI committee of the European Parliament, asking the MEPs for continued support for the Farm to Fork.
