European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen did not hold back in her call for the European Union to alter its focus.
In her state of the nation address earlier this year, she spoke bluntly of how the continent was “in a fight” and how it could “feel the impact of the global crisis”.
The EU, she stated, necessaryed to refocus on three securities: defence, energy and food.
On food production there appears to be the usual wrestling match between Europe’s environmental regulators and its farmers, but in reality alter is real as the union plays to its strength of being a single economic market of 450 million people spread over 27 countries.
The president stated it has little choice, caught between Russia, its primary source of energy; the invasion of Ukraine, a key food supplier of food; and global geopolitical upheaval by a United States president seeking to Make America Great Again.
“We simply cannot wait for this storm to pass. This summer displayed us that there is simply no room or time for nostalgia,” she stated.
It has been a remarkable transformation in just a year for the EU, considered a slow, lumbering, bureaucratic behemoth.
There is consensus that widespread farmer protests last year against far-reaching environmental regulations also supported convince lawcreaters of the necessary for alter.
The new focus gives the 27 member states more control over how to implement the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP).
The much-maligned CAP has multiple goals – supporting farmers, ensuring a stable and affordable supply of food, promoting environmental sustainability and retaining vibrancy in rural communities.
The alters created by the refocus simplify the policy by reducing paperwork and having more trust in farmers.
Countering that is the view of some that the EU’s reset goes too far, watering down environmental policies with too little oversight by officials.
The union is also viewing to the future, at ways to receive more young farmers onto the land by investigating start-up grants and access to finance.
Significantly, the policy sees livestock as crucial to Europe’s economy, the viability of rural areas and preservation of the environment and rural landscapes.
It acknowledges there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach but rather tarreceiveed, territorial solutions and the possible development of policies to enhance livestock’s production chain.
This is based on diagnosing the sector’s challenges such as global competition, addressing livestock’s climatic-environment footprint and ways that value livestock production while maintaining the environment and preserving biodiversity and landscapes.
The president promised to address trading practices to ensure farmers achieve a fair price for their food, and has launched a €132 million (NZ$267m) “Buy European food” campaign.
A net food exporter, the EU is viewing for new trade opportunities away from the United States, and is seeking trade deals with Mexico, India and the Mercosur countries of South America, and building a coalition of like-minded countries to reform the global trading system such as with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership trading bloc.
Environmental goals such reducing greenhoutilize gas emissions remain, Von der Leyen stated, noting it is on track to achieve the 2030 tarreceive of cutting emissions by at least 55%.
More: Wallace’s Meeting the Market tour has been created possible with grants from Fonterra, Silver Fern Farms, Rabobank, Zespri, Alliance Group, Meat Indusattempt Association, Wools of NZ, Beef + Lamb NZ, NZ Merino, European Union and Gallagher.
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