PRESS RELEASE
 Pavia, Italy – 16 October 2016

This weekend, more than 200 representatives from 18 different EU Member States participated in the Global Food Forum, which took place on a farm close to Pavia (Italy).

Economic leaders, representatives of EU institutions and governments reflected, together, on the future challenges and the need of a renewed vision for the agricultural sector based on economic ambition, trust and mutual confidence, and a better use of natural resources thanks to the potential of new techniques that are beneficial for both citizens and farmers.

“Time has come for the European Union to discover again its agriculture and its farmers, not only
sending a cheque when political pressure is too high, but also reflecting carefully on the best ways to use public spending. Time has come to table a real economic strategy for EU agriculture and food systems. In doing so we will restore confidence, regain optimism and build future growth. Agriculture needs visibility, predictability and transparency”, stated Mario Guidi, the President of the Global Food Forum and of Confagricoltura, opening the event (full speech here).

1)    Economic sustainability : focusing on investments

The ambition of keeping a dynamic agri-food industry all across the EU should be transformed into a new ambition. Over the past 10 years, the productivity of the EU agricultural sector decreased by more than 10%. Europe must not limit its actions to a set of initiatives aiming at accompanying a slowing down of its farming sector. Neither should it accept to limit its ambition to an agriculture of conservation in the most fragile areas. On the contrary, the European policy framework should focus on launching dynamic and targeted economic strategies to revive investments all across the EU food chain. The economic dimension of the Common Agricultural Policy should be renewed.

2)    Risk managements tools : focusing on farmers

The new strategy should integrate that agriculture will face growing climate and market disturbances in the future. Risk management tools will therefore be necessary to achieve the resilience of the large range of EU agriculture models. This will not be obtained through a single tool at European level, but through a choice of complementary tools, placing farmers at the core of the decisions according to their specific situation and needs. Detailed recommendations on how to improve the resilience of the farming sector have been developed during the Forum.

3)    Environmental sustainability: focusing on results

Technological advancements in the agricultural sector create new opportunities for environmental and sustainability policies at the European level. The EU institutions can seize the enormous potential of innovations to build simple and effective policies and reduce the amount of bureaucratic procedures for farmers. The European Union can shift from a prescriptive policy to a real result-based policy that would be complementary with the current greening criteria and based on the will of the farmers themselves (producers could opt for the existing policies or a result-based approach). This new option for the greening requirement would be founded on quantifiable objectives that are adjusted to the knowledge and technical capacities of farmers.

4)    Finding a new deal across the food chain actors

The lack of solidarity is undermining the capacity of the food chain to cope with the challenges of globalisation and investments. The new deal should first reaffirm the prominence of the CAP over general competition rules. This principle should also be applied by national competition authorities. Transparency should be improved, including when it comes to price and volumes at 1^st processing level and final consumer level. Contract relations should be encouraged on the basis of clearer rules, allowing collective contract negotiations at Producer organisation level or by Groups of Producer Organisations. In order to encourage cooperation among farmers and food producers, a branch approach for volumes and price negotiation should be explicitly authorised to guarantee a better repartition of the value when prices are both going up or down. These approaches should be seen baring in mind that the relevant markets for the main agricultural products are more often at European scale than national or regional one.  When it comes to Unfair Commercial Practices, a clear set of practices should be prohibited, with clear and dissuasive sanction mechanisms, fully securing the identity of the complainants.

5)    Nutrition and health : strengthening trust and securing the internal market

The European food chain is facing the challenge of finding a harmonious and positive relationship between diet and health. To do this, a number of obstacles must be overcome: a clear and joint strategy on the part of all the actors of the food chain (agriculture, industry, trade) should be defined, the credibility of EFSA as a the pole of excellence and reference of EU legislator should be strengthened, the scientific consensus has to be improved to avoid confusion among consumers and the law should be based on real and credible scientific evidence, not assumptions. In addition, dialogue with Civil Society should be encouraged in order to build a new consensus and go beyond ideological positions. The lack of debate between public and private actors around the issue food and health is unacceptable. This challenge must be tackled seriously, at EU level in order to build trust among the actors and define a real European vision and solutions.

6)    Brexit and trade

Most of the EU countries have substantial trade interests in the UK market when it comes to the agri-food sector. Whatever the result of the EU/UK negotiations, both the internal policy shift in the UK and diverging trade strategies between the EU and UK will lead to medium and long term changes for the EU agri-food sector. This should not be underestimated, even more following the clear commitment of the new British leaders to create the biggest open economy in the world. This strategy will make it difficult to achieve a full free trade agreement between the EU and the UK without any safeguards. The common line for the challenges of Brexit and freer trade is enhanced competition for the EU-27 agri-food sector across the board and a very daunting challenge notably to the beef  sector. When it comes to the overall EU trade agenda, Brexit may be the occasion to review the way that mandates for negotiations are given to the European Commission, and relaunch the EU trade policy on a new governance, more transparent and thus more acceptable to civil society.

For journalists, available upon request at info@farm-europe.eu :

• High level definition pictures of the Global Food Forum 
• All the reports and recommandations from the workshops 

Bucharest – July 8th, 2016. In the wake of the Global Food Forum, which will take place on the 14-15 October 2016, Farm Europe organised, in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture of Romania, a regional event to take stock of the most pressing concerns in the new Member States when it comes to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Gathering high-level representatives from both political and business background coming from 11 EU Member States, the issue of investments has been at the core of the debate.

Opening the event, Dacian Cioloş, Prime Minister of Romania underlined: “More than ever it’s the common responsibility of all Europeans to take an active part in the debate to say what they wants from the European Union and from the Common Agricultural Policy in particular. The CAP is one of the most – if not the most – achieved European policy”. “The agri-food community has the responsibility not only to highlight the problems, but also to make informed proposals on what future policy should be”, he also added. “There is not one single Member State in Europe that is not directly interested in the future of the CAP. It’s absolutely necessary to keep common rules while taking the specificity of each of our agricultures” (Full speech available here).

Mario Guidi, President of Confagricoltura and of the Global Food Forum noted that: “We need to better explain and modernize the CAP that is uniting the European Union and contributing to growth. It’s urgent to restore confidence in the CAP which is the first and probably the most important investment policy in Europe, with tangible results for EU citizens. Working on a better and more efficient CAP, it’s improving Europe as a whole. The Global Food Forum which will take place in October will provide a unique opportunity to put ideas on the table on how to strengthen the CAP”.

Tackling price volatility to secure investments, enhancing farmers’ organization and securing access to land for local farmers, were the key issues discussed during the debates in Bucharest during 3 workshops on Competitiveness, Resilience and Sustainability (Background paper here).

Most participants highlighted that the Common Agricultural Policy is at a crossroads, in the context of the post-Brexit referendum and of the current crisis which affects most – if not all – agricultural sectors across the European Union.

Will it goes down the path of a more “à la carte” policy, diverting more and more from a Common policy or will it take up effectively the challenges of investments all across the EU offering real responses to farmers needs and legitimate expectations?

The participants unanimously called for European solutions to face European challenges, while asking for a less bureaucratic approach of sustainability, for urgent initiatives to cope with market volatility, raising the necessity for EU farmers to be better insured against climate risks and the possibility to implement cost effective tools in that respect.

Furthermore, they stressed the urgency to deliver on market risks with more efficient tools such as insurance, mutual funds or individual savings. They called as well, for strongly, less ideological positions when it comes to environmental measures and trade bilateral talks, towards which Europe must show its capacity to protect its farmers in a much better way.

26.05.2016 – Brussels. Today, Farm Europe hosted a reflection group on the situation of the global milk market, gathering key players and high representatives on both EU and global milk markets.

The milk crisis is entering its second consecutive year, with no hope of a recovery in the short term.

Farms are disappearing daily. If nothing is done, no less than 20% of Europe’s dairy farms and tens of thousands of dependent jobs will be wiped off the map, or will be moved to areas where dairy production is already highly concentrated.

Yet, despite climate change and growing concerns about the environment, animal welfare, or the vitality of rural areas, a balanced distribution of dairy production across the whole EU remains as much a priority today as it has always been.

The Commission is the only institution that is able to represent the collective interest – by making full use of its exclusive power to propose.

Concrete EU solutions exist

An immediate, simple, and effective policy response to the crisis lies in the introduction of a truly European scheme aiming to rapidly return some stability to the dairy market.

This is feasible.

There are two possible solutions, the rules for which would need to be determined at the European scale:

• Option 1: Building on the Article 222. This option would introduce on the basis of Article 219 of the single CMO a European obligation to target any emergency aid that is unlocked, including schemes funded with European funds and schemes set up under the state aid regime. As a result, Public funds would be exclusively targeted at dairy producers who undertake to reduce their production (relative to their 2015 level) through: a technical adjustment in their herd management, a higher culling rate, or through abandoning dairy production altogether. It would be responsibility of member states to set appropriate levels of public support, commensurate with the amount and type of reduction implemented. This option would guarantee that no public funds in the EU are channelled to producers that are not reducing their production. In other words, it would avoid unfair competition between farmers fuelled by public money. It would be necessary to set a clear reduction objective at EU level as a minimum reduction target.

• Option 2: The organisation of a European “call for tender” via additional EU funds to encourage dairy farmers to voluntarily reduce their production volumes, and which would be open to all European producers. The latter would undertake to reduce their deliveries to dairies by a set amount relative to 2015 and for a temporary period of 6 months, receiving a sufficiently appealing rate of compensation in return. This would be a truly EU scheme, managed and financed directly by the European Commission with a clear reduction target. More than 2 billions of litters could be withdrawn from the market with less than €500 million. This option would provide higher visibility on the quantities withdrawn from the market than option 1.

Such measures – either option 1 or 2 – would be beneficial for employment across all Europe’s rural areas. They would offer far better value for money than a new and ineffective plan to distribute public money in a piecemeal way, which would be catastrophic for Europe’s image, both in the eyes of taxpayers and farmers.

This EU plan should be drawn up and announced before the summer, and implemented by the autumn.

The Commission possesses, today, all the financial and policymaking power that it requires to submit, without delay, a proposal in this area to Member States and to the European Parliament under the Single CMO Regulation.

The 2016 CAP budget can fund an ambitious and effective plan without recourse to the emergency fund.

In addition to this, the European Commission should also work on a coherent package of measures introducing EU mandatory systems, that identify the origin of the raw material, inform the consumer, and at the same time encouraging efforts made by EU producers to generate more added value.

It is also necessary to engage, in the very short term and with the EU support, in a structured response to current misleading campaigns against dairy products, underlining the importance of nutritional properties of milk products and their fundamental role in a balance diet

However, any solutions that continue to structurally maintain over-production should be excluded. As is the case with ‘public intervention’ which is not the relevant tool to cope with the current situation. These measures only serve to prop up over-production through an artificial public buyer. A fresh increase in the intervention rate would not be helpful for the moment. It would only encourage the persistence of unsustainable levels of production, and would only further delay any recovery due to the massive levels of intervention stocks it would generate.

Today, Farm Europe hosted a debate on how Climate Change is impacting agriculture and food systems in a world experiencing more instable and volatile markets.

Food production has become very interdependent and supply side shocks due to draught, disease, severe climate events and lately climate change contribute to a high degree of volatility on output. On the demand side political instability, population growth, economic development in emerging markets and advanced economies, change in dietary habits and financial problems are key factors. The result is increased volatility with consequent effect on agricultural prices, producer’s income and consumer prices leading to political and social unrest.

What is our response? And, specifically, how main worldwide agricultural regions and notably Europe should respond to one of the most crucial challenges that the world will face in the coming decades? 

This one, alongside other key questions about how it will be possible to establish a sustainable agricultural and food systems were thoroughly addressed by panelists and participants.

Farm Europe’s event started with the presentation of a very innovative study on the ”Food Chain Reaction: A Global Food Security Game” which, in November 2015, gathered 65 thought leaders and policy makers from several countries in Washington, D.C. This project, to which Farm Europe had the pleasure to participate, revealed the different approaches toward agri-food systems at global level in the context of Climate Change, through a simulation of a real global food crisis caused by population growth, rapid urbanisation, extreme weather, and political turmoil. The exercise put the issue of food security at the forefront of a global conversation and teams were able to see firsthand via the simulation what the future of food security could look like in an increasingly volatile world.

Farm Europe’s discussion was then opened and fuelled by Farm Europe’s Senior Fellow Lars Hoelgaard, alongside with Patrice de Laurens from the French Ministry of Agriculture, Joost Korte, DDG at the European Commission, Joe Stone, President at Cargill Animal Nutrition and Jeff Malcolm, Director at WWF – sponsor of the Global Food Security Game.

Overall, from panelists’ comments two clear concepts came out:

1. At the end of the day, in this volatile context, Climate change and Food security challenges are common. Accordingly, decision makers have to build ambitious policy answers, not independently, but in a collaborative way, by taking into account political and economic interconnections in a ever more globalised world.
2. There is no single solution, no “silver bullet”. The key lesson is that these issues need to be addressed in an integrated manner across all sector

Since 2006, when farm incomes in Europe and in the United States were still balanced, the US has managed to double its farmers’ incomes, while the EU has experienced stagnation and even a slight decrease across the same period.

This analysis of the evolution of farmers’ incomes on both sides of the Atlantic was presented today at the European Parliament during the launch event of Farm Europe’s Global Food Forum (GFF) initiative (full report available here).

The key objective of the GFF – which will be a set of regional events and a main forum will take take place in Italy (14-15 October 2016) – will be to go beyond current pessimism, with the ambition of tabling proposals for an EU policy better oriented towards job creation and sustainable growth. The recommendations will be presented to decision-makers at the end of the year on the basis of the participatory process animated by Farm Europe.

“The agri-food sector is at the crossroads between huge opportunities and massive pressure. Every single decision needs to be informed by a wide range of factors where citizen expectations, breakthrough technologies and consumption patterns are only the tip of the iceberg”, said Mario Guidi, President of Confagricultura and of the GFF2016, adding: “the Global Food Forum will gather passionate business and political leaders willing to work in a European spirit, to share insights on their vision as well as on possible pathways for future developments to enhance both economic performance and environmental sustainability”.

Hosting the debate, MEP Michel Dantin said:

“As one of the architects of the previous reform of the CAP, I believe that we did not go far enough, and I welcome Farm Europe’s initiative to engage a pro-active and constructive thinking process on the future CAP. The current CAP remains stuck in a political vision and principles from 1992, ie almost 30 years ago. I am now convinced that the CAP unfortunately no longer meets the ambitions that the European Union must have for its agriculture and agri-food sectors. We have a duty to give birth to an environment that allows these industries to express their potential for growth and employment”.

Opening the debate, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Phil Hogan underlined that “it’s not easy to look beyond the here and now, but we must. In looking at the CAP beyond the crisis, we should look at the role that the policy can play in the growth of the European agri-food sector as well as the role that the policy can play in the delivery of the political priorities of this Commission. (…) With the right combination of policy and communication, I believe that we can secure the place of the Common Agricultural Policy as a policy that is central to the delivery of sustainable growth in the EU, today and tomorrow”.

Yves Madre (Farm Europe) presented the key questions to be discussed during the Forum, which will be structured around 3 key pillars: resilience, sustainability and investments. Do European farmers compete on a level playing field? Do we need further adaptations of the CAP in order to boost investments and better structure the food chain? Are decoupled payments still the right policy response to cope with volatility? Is there a scope to increase the efficiency of the greening of the CAP, for example, transforming it into an objective based policy?

These were some of the questions raised in the opening the panel discussion with Mario Guidi, President of Confagricoltura, Markus Neundörfer, Director at Südzucker, Xavier Beulin, President of FNSEA and Paolo De Castro, MEP.

Xavier Beulin underlined that “the equation is simple: no visibility, no confidence; no confidence, no investments; no investments, no future. I believe in the European project, but I want a better Europe that should not be frozen into excessive legalism sometime and other times failing in building a proper internal market with common rules on social, fiscal and environmental aspects. A single farm payment per hectare and a coercive greening – this does not make a Common Agricultural Policy. We need a strong partnership between Europe and its farmers. The farmers are the first group interested in both developing sustainable agricultural practices and generating sustainable growth”.

Mario Guidi stated: The crisis we are facing today shows how CAP needs to be rethought to adapt its instruments to the current world economy, and to respond to the sustainable development path. Production capacity for our business requires radically new instruments allowing farmers to tackle the challenges of competitiveness, volatility and sustainability. We are ready to start a deep and courageous discussion to explore if direct payments as designed today are really shaped to make our sector a competitive one, key for the EU economic growth. Among the elements we need to improve a special place has to be given to the risk management instruments. This and much more could be achieved only if driven by the idea that we need more Europe: a common agricultural market is far from being a reality and we are committed to work in this sense.

Markus Neundörfer underlined the importance of single market as a major strength for the European economy. « However, there are more and more national diverging approaches such as in labelling and health rules, or interpretation of competition rules, not mentioning the flexibilities given to Member States in crisis management or in terms of coupled payments ».

Paolo de Castro concluded the panel discussion saying: “The CAP needs a mid-term review in order to achieve less bureaucracy and to strengthen the capacity of the European Union to react collectively to market crisis preventing the pitfall of renationalisation. Volatility is here to stay and we need a much more ambitious CAP to bring concrete solution for European farmers”.

• private storage is a useful tool given the narrowness of the market for butter and milk powder. Its character is paramount, and the storage period must be rational in terms of a return to balance which will not be achieved immediately.

• A more sustained policy of promotion is necessary. In this regard, economic reality should be the basic principle: it is in times of crisis that the return to the markets must work, on all markets but especially for those exporting milk powder and butter. These European products have quality assets and a strong global reputation. The (re-)conquest of world markets must be not only accompanied, but also anticipated, by a dynamic European policy of promotion. In this regard, an insurance fund for export credit would be an additional aid, such a tool already being available to Europe’s competitors.

One tool has, in this regard, been regularly mentioned since 2014. But its analysis as a serious option was incessantly postponed until it was finally implemented by the private initiative of a cooperative in the Netherlands: the possibility to introduce a European incentive to reduce production for a limited time frame and for a predefined volume. This option deserves to be analysed without preconceptions and without the fears conjured with the introduction of new tools.

In times of imbalance between production and demand, responsiveness is key to limiting the financial consequences both for the farming community and for the taxpayers.

• rapid implementation,
• a balanced management of tenders (not too much, but also not so little as to deny the budget which would nip it in the bud),
• and to assume that it would, without a doubt, target two main types of farm:
  • competitive farms with lower production would participate fully in the common good of the European milk sector;
  • farms leaving the dairy sector (with public support), thus participating in a move towards the sector’s restructuring.