Post Tags: Food policy

Open Letter: Europe needs more farmers

Categories

Food

Brussels, 16 April 2021

Today, a joint letter to the European Commission, launched by European Coordination Via Campesina and signed by Food & Water Action Europe, together with farmers’ organisations, environmental organisations, NGOs, unions, and researchers, underlines the key role of small and medium-sized farmers in the resolution of current social, environmental, and food-related crises. It demands that EU policy in this pivotal moment must support and increase the number of small-scale farmers.

This letter marks the week of 17 April, International Day of Peasant Struggles. On this day, we commemorate the massacre of 21 landless peasants in 1996 in Eldorado dos Carajás, Brazil, while demonstrating in support of comprehensive agrarian reform.

You can see the full letter and list of signatories here. 

Climate and health crises driven by factory farms across Europe, says new report

Campaigners urge EU to phase out all factory farms by 2040

Read the report: The Urgent Case to Stop Factory Farms in Europe

Brussels, October 8 – Factory-farmed meat production in the EU is on the rise, and is putting the climate and human health at risk according to a new report released today from Food & Water Action Europe and Friends of the Earth Europe.

A rise in industrial meat production in the European Union has been accompanied by a rapid decline in the number of small farms. This has led to a dangerous rise of “factory farms”, characterised by large numbers of animals confined in crowded spaces.

The report reveals that:

  • Unsafe working conditions on factory farms and slaughterhouses put workers in danger and increase the spread of diseases including COVID-19;
  • Global production of soybeans for animal feed, and the resulting deforestation, are exacerbating the climate crisis, constituting around 7% of all greenhouse gas emissions originating from human activity;
  • The European meat sector is dominated by a few large corporations who are increasing in size through mergers and acquisitions. Vertical integration threatens the existence of small-scale farmers, drops the prices for producers and leaves all the profits with agribusiness;
  • The routine dosing of antibiotics to factory farmed animals is increasing the risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria ending up in meat;
  • Manure from livestock farming severely contributes to air pollution (namely via ammonia emissions) and water pollution (via nitrate outputs) – a serious health risk for people living near factory farms.

Stanka Becheva, food and farming campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe said: “Intensive animal farming is on the rise in Europe and it has already had devastating impacts on nature, peasant farming, our health and rural areas. The COVID-19 crisis has proved the fragility and inhumanity of the system which makes cheap meat possible, and how much it depends on unethical and unfair conditions for workers. We need urgent action from EU and national policy makers to change this.”

David Sánchez Carpio, director of EU affairs at Food & Water Action Europe said: “The rise of factory farming in Europe is the result of misguided political choices. The European Commission should use the Farm to Fork strategy to shift this trend, ban factory farms in Europe and to support a just transition into a socially and environmentally friendly livestock sector.”

The European Commission’s Farm to Fork strategy pledges to reduce the environmental and climate impact of animal production. However, no concrete actions are suggested to tackle the root causes of the problem.

Friends of the Earth Europe and Food & Water Action Europe are calling on the European Commission use its upcoming ‘legislative framework for sustainable food systems’ to:

  • Propose concrete action to stop the construction of new factory farms and phase out existing ones by 2040.
  • Develop a transition fund for workers in factory farms and the meat industry to shift into more sustainable jobs
  • Support sustainable small-scale livestock producers and decentralised meat processing facilities that contribute to rural development

ENDS

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NGOs call for less and better meat, dairy and eggs in the Farm to Fork Strategy

NGOs call for less and better meat, dairy and eggs in the Farm to Fork Strategy

Brussels — Ahead of the European Commission’s Farm to Fork Strategy, Food & Water Europe and 19 other NGOs wrote to key Commissioners and Commission Vice-President Timmermans to call on them to recognise and address the need to reduce and improve the production and consumption of meat, dairy and eggs in the strategy.

Read the letter.

Más de treinta eurodiputados piden la paralización de la macrogranja de las 20.000 vacas en Noviercas (Soria)

En Inglés

Madrid, Bruselas — Treinta y tres eurodiputadas y eurodiputados de seis grupos políticos y once países han remitido hoy una carta [1] al Gobierno español y castellanoleonés para pedir la paralización del proyecto para construir una macrogranja con más de 23.000 vacas en la provincia de Soria [2]. Si este proyecto se lleva a cabo, sería la mayor granja lechera de la Unión Europea y abriría las puertas a un modelo de ganadería industrial importado de EE.UU. que no tiene cabida en Europa.

Una coalición de asociaciones ecologistas, movimientos locales y sindicatos agrarios [3] se opone a este proyecto por sus potenciales impactos sobre la economía rural, el medio ambiente, la población, la calidad del aire y del agua de la zona y el impacto global de la ganadería industrial en el cambio climático.

David Sánchez, portavoz de Food & Water Europe afirmó: “Los gobiernos central y autonómico no pueden permitir que este modelo de ganadería industrial llegue a Europa. Sus impactos en EEUU están ya más que documentados, no ayuda a las zonas rurales y no tiene nada que ver con el modelo de agricultura y alimentación que demandan las personas consumidoras”.

Florent Marcellesi, eurodiputado y firmante de la carta afirmó: “La UE no puede seguir permitiendo la preocupante proliferación de macrogranjas como la de Noviercas que además de convertir a España en el estercolero de Europa, destruyen empleos, nuestra salud, el medio ambiente, el clima y las oportunidades en el mundo rural. Ya hemos llevado esta batalla a Bruselas y desde aquí seguimos trabajando para que la UE apueste cuanto antes por un modelo agroalimentario sostenible, saludable, respetuoso con los animales y que contribuya al desarrollo del mundo rural”

Notas

[1] La carta y el listado de firmantes está disponible aquí.

[2] Más información sobre el Proyecto está disponible en:

Español: https://fweuro.pe/20000ES

Inglés: https://fweuro.pe/20000EN

Francés: https://fweuro.pe/20000FR

[3] La coalición incluye, entre otros, a Greenpeace, Amigos de la Tierra, Ecologistas en Acción, COAG y Food & Water Europe.

Contacto

David Sánchez Carpio, Food & Water Europe, +32 (0) 2893 1045, +34 616206942, dsanchez(at)fweurope.org

Florent Marcellesi, +3222837743, [email protected]

Block Bayer-Monsanto Merger, Says Major New Legal Study

Friends of the Earth Europe, WeMove.EU, Food & Water Europe, SumOfUs

For immediate release: Monday October 16

Brussels, October 16 – The proposed merger between Bayer and Monsanto should be blocked under EU competition law, according to a major new study from University College London to be released on World Food Day.

The authors of the report claim that the European Commission should be obliged to block the merger – which is currently under an in-depth investigation from the European Commission – even on a narrow reading of EU competition law.

The analysis concludes that the “Baysanto” merger should be blocked as:

  • It would reduce competition: It concentrates even further an already tightly-packed agriculture sector. Just three mega-companies (ChemChina-Syngenta, DuPont-Dow and Bayer-Monsanto) would own and sell about 64% of the world’s pesticides, and 60% of the world’s patented seeds.
  • It would raise prices and farmer dependency: One-stop inclusive packages of all services needed for agriculture (seeds, pesticides, and also “digital farming” products) would lock farmers into the company’s value chain, making them technologically dependent and facing price hikes in seeds and pesticides.
  • Asset selling won’t solve the crisis: Even if the Commission forces the companies to sell off some products the market is already so concentrated that divesting particular products will not address the merger’s negative effects on future competition in the seeds markets.
  • It would stifle alternative businesses: The three mega-corporations controlling the global food value chain would “entrench the market power of the dominant players for the decades to come”, thereby freezing more sustainable forms of agriculture

The academics also call on the European Commission to broaden its investigation of the merger to take into account the full social and environmental costs, as they are likely to “lead to important risks for food security and safety, biodiversity… [and risks for] affordable food prices, high quality of food, variety and innovation”.

Adrian Bebb, food and farming campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe said: “EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager has more than enough arguments to block the unholy alliance of Bayer and Monsanto, and send a strong signal that the EU is prepared to stand up to these mega-corporations in order to protect farmers, citizens and our environment.

“The consolidation taking place between these agriculture giants would have major impacts on the future of our countryside, rural livelihoods and our environment. It is vital that the European Commission widens its investigation to ensure that we retain the possibility to move agriculture onto a sustainable and resilient footing to help counter climate change and halt biodiversity loss.”

Earlier this year over 200 civil society organisations called on European Competition Commissioner Vestager to stop the current wave of mergers in the agri-business sector. Almost 900,000 citizens have signed petitions calling for the Commission to act.

 

 

 

 

TTIP and Genetically Engineered Foods

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Common Resources

Get the endnotes in the .pdf

In 2013, the United States and the European Union (EU) began negotiations to create the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), also known as the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA). The trade relationship across the Atlantic is already the number one economic relationship in the world, making up a third of all trade in goods and services and about half of global economic output. Both the United States and EU claim that a new trade agreement with the EU would enhance job creation and competitiveness by eliminating trade barriers and harmonising regulations — but the real winners would be big biotech and food companies, at the expense of consumers and the environment.

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