BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th December, 2019) The flagship European Green Deal policy, designed to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 through radical reforms in all economic sectors, including agriculture, has left farmers wondering about its compatibility with the existing agricultural policies.�
The deal was nurtured by European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen to become the triumphant opener of her term. The details were officially unveiled on Wednesday and turned to be much broader than expected. Aside from issues related to strictly emissions of greenhouse gases, the deal has 50 initiatives to it ranging from taxation to digitization of economy. The list is expected to be modified upon bloc-wide discussion, but in its current edition it is clear that agriculture and farming are among the sectors to be reformed the most.
These initiatives are called to halve all carbon emissions by 2030, setting a "realistic path to the 2050 goal" of zeroing them. In coming March, they will be codified in the so-called European Climate Law to make the transition irreversible and legally binding.
'MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS' AT THIS STAGE
The "Farm to Fork" strategy with juicy, yet not immediately clear name is in the cornerstone of the deal's agricultural rubric. It is due to be unveiled in detail in spring of 2020, but from what is known about it so far, it is going to secure the Europeans with "affordable and sustainable food" with minimum impact on nature.
In particular, the plan is to "significantly reduce" the use of fertilizers, pesticides and antibiotics in food production and make imports from third countries comply with the same environmental standards as domestic produce. The financial side of the question has 40 percent of the 1962 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and 30 percent of the maritime fisheries funds envisaged to go to climate action within the EU budget for 2021-2017.
"Farmers and fishermen are key to managing the transition," the policy's informational handout reads.
"Farmers and cooperatives are ready to deliver, provided the Green Deal is coherent and consistent. At this stage though, the 'Green Deal' raises more questions than it solves!" spokesperson for the Committee of Professional Agricultural Organizations - General Confederation of Agricultural Cooperatives (COPA), Jean-Baptiste Boucher, told Sputnik.
It is these questions that had brought thousands of farmers across the European Union to the streets over the past several weeks to demand coherent policies, decent income and end of vilification of agricultural production, he continued.
According to the lobbyist, farmers need to know how they are going to be compensated for the planned cuts and increased costs of production, how the "Farm to Fork" is going to improve farmers' position in the value chain, and how the strategy is going to maneuver the existing agricultural policies, such as the EU Directive on unfair trading practices in business-to-business relations in the agricultural and food supply chain, adopted in April.
"You must also realize that with treaties such as Mercosur [free trade agreement between the EU and the Southern Common Market trade bloc], many products entering Europe will be produced with practices forbidden in Europe (meat for example). It is unacceptable," Boucher continued.
There is a lot of preparatory work to do before most of the proposed reforms can begin being implemented, he further opined, saying "We have great doubts about the planning given by the Commission: a law in 100 days?"
"Only 50 percent of European rural areas have broadband coverage. It will be a problem to apply the 'digital revolution' in farming if the EU does not improve that!" Boucher stressed. "The Commission also wants to reduce or forbid pesticides and fertilizers or animal health products. Fine, but are the solutions ready? They do not give an alternative list. They propose consultation, that is all!"
In addition to the technical unpreparedness, the European agriculture experiences pressing social and demographic hardships, he continued.
"They still have to negotiate Brexit now that we are sure Britain leaves at the end of January. It will be 2022-2023 before anything is ready," Boucher explained, revealing that "this all comes at a time when there is a terrible crisis of generational renewal of the farmers. Many young farmers abandon the job because of financial difficulties. What will the Commission do about it?"
WHAT WAS WRONG WITH OLD AGRO POLICIES
Since 1962, the agricultural processes of the EU have been regulated by the CAP, a policy that allocated funds from the EU budget to enhance agricultural productivity while also tackling climate change. Today, it has a total budget of 65 billion Euros and costs an annual 120 euros per person to nearly 500 million Europeans in subsidies to farmers.
"The price to pay for food security is barely the equivalent to a tankful of gasoline. It is less than the audiovisual license for your tv, to ensure food security, for subsidizing the farmers that work incredibly hard, most of the time for a very small retribution. Is it excessive? I don't think so. Defense costs are much higher!" Jean-Paul Adam, a farmer from southern Belgium, old Sputnik.
In addition to these subsidies being little, small farmers almost do not benefit from them. Subsidies flow to larger farms that produce en mass and abundantly use pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers that pollute underground waters and destroy pollinator insects - implications felt by agriculture bloc-wide.
"Last but not least, not all farmers benefit from these subsidies. Small farmers only survive with the present market conditions. They must sell their meat or their milk below the cost level. We have a high number of suicides among young farmers who can't face their debts anymore," the farmer added.
Throughout 1985-2017, the size of subsidies went down from 73 percent of the EU budget to 37 percent. In June 2003, the EU decoupled subsidies from particular crops, making payments less in amount and linked no longer to production but instead to food safety and quality, environmental maintenance and animal welfare.
The 2007-2008 the world food price crisis renewed calls for farm subsidies to be removed as evidence suggested that they pushed food prices up, which had a particularly detrimental effect on developing countries. But canceling the 65 billion euro fund will not affect the farmers alone.
The agricultural sector is notoriously corrupt, with politicians across EU countries regularly popping up in revealing journalistic investigations and corruption scandals. Most recently, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis was involved in a scandal after allegedly appropriating multi-million illegal EU subsidies through his agro-company Agrifert, the largest in the country.
With billions of Dollars pumped into agriculture in Europe annually, the industry got permeated by the culture of mas consumption that has dominated the latest decade.
"The abundance of food products in our supermarkets belies a serious problem for our society. A large part of our population lives from the cheapest mass-produced goods that we can not recommend in the long run. Sustainably produced foods from a diverse range of regional quality are increasingly becoming a privilege of a dwindling middle class. This vicious circle must be broken," Stephan Protschka, the chairman of the Bundestag Committee on Food and Agriculture, told Sputnik.
The lawmaker from the Alternative for Germany party stressed that whatever the reform in the agricultural sector, it must support smaller and middle farms and offer them incentives to produce healthier foods affordable for vulnerable social classes.
It remains to see whether the new Green Deal will come as a package deal or be broken into sector-specific parts� in order to survive, as there is already a precedent of an EU country opting out from the commonly-agreed timeline to pursue climate neutrality at its own pace.
