Debate: Ensuring food security and the long-term resilience of EU agriculture
Date: TUESDAY, 13 JUNE 2023
Speaker: Janusz Wojciechowski
Language: EN

I welcome the report prepared by the AGRI Committee and the opinion-giving Committees DEVE and ENVI. Congratulations for the rapporteur, Ms Mortler. In my speech, I will address a number of key points that touch on the most important challenges we face in terms of food security. First of all, the last three years have been a time of constant crisis, unprecedented for almost a century. A pandemic such as COVID-19 has not been in Europe since World War I, since the Spanish Flu of 1918. And we have a criminal aggression against an independent state in Europe for the first time in 80 years, since World War II. We are therefore facing the biggest crisis in the history of the European Union. This crisis has also hit our agriculture very hard with increased production costs and the destabilisation of agricultural markets. We are grateful to our farmers and everybody in the food chain who has ensured food security in such huge crisis. We are all more grateful to farmers given that they are suffering from the effects of the pandemic and the consequences of the war, in addition to the increasingly frequent and dramatic effects of the climate and biodiversity crisis. Once again, we have a severe drought in the European Union. We have suffered a tragic flood with fatalities and huge agricultural losses. For the first time in the history of the European Union, agriculture has found itself in such a serious and widespread crisis, yet it continues to ensure food security for us all. Returning to the to the pandemic, the European Court of Auditors published its latest report, number 09/23, in which it gave a positive assessment of the European Union’s activities regarding the functioning of the food system during the pandemic. The Court found that the Commission’s actions were swift and effective and contributed to food security. I’m happy with this opinion and I hope that our future response to the war crisis, such as the mobilisation of further tranches of crisis reserves and other actions, like including agriculture in the public emergency system, the mobilisation of crisis reserves, the suspension of certain restrictions on agricultural production, will also be assessed positively. My second point relates to the green transition. Sustainability is very important for food security, of course. We should remember that agriculture is not industry. Agricultural land is not a factory and animals are not machines. But the implementation of this green transition and the implementation of the Green Deal in agriculture must be carried out with concern for food security. This is why the Commission conducted a comprehensive impact assessment accompanying every single legal proposal. Let’s remember that agriculture’s primary task is to ensure the supply of food. Farmers are in the frontline of the impact of the climate and biodiversity crisis. This is why the green transition is also a transition towards strengthening food security. Climate, biodiversity and food security must be part of the same approach. Honourable Members, let me also recall that in this year, 2023, we started implementing the biggest reform of the common agricultural policy in 30 years. We have reached a very good political compromise on this reform. We agreed collectively that agriculture should be more environmentally and climate-friendly and animal welfare-friendly. We also agreed that we want to achieve ambitious environmental, climate and welfare objectives for all incentives for farmers. We agreed on the scope of conditionality of the common agricultural policy and introduced a system of incentives in the form of eco-schemes in Pillar I and agri-environmental measures in Pillar II of the CAP. We have concluded a clear agreement with farmers. Farmers know what conditions must be met to participate in the CAP and what environmental and climate action they need to take in order to make greater use of CAP funds. It is important that we pursue our agreement on the CAP and ensure its full implementation for the benefit of farmers and their transition to sustainability. But we should remember also about stability. I had a meeting with the Swedish farmers during the informal Council meeting yesterday, and I asked the Swedish farmers what they wish from the European Union policy for their future. I heard them ask for stability. First of all, stability – stable policy for the future. We have a lot of requirements for the farmers in the reformed common agricultural policy. We should not increase these requirements when farmers are facing the biggest crisis since the inception of the EU. Any attempt to force farmers into additional practices not provided for in the CAP reform, could be a threat to the functioning of agriculture and threat for the for food security. My third point concerns generational renewal. Over the decade 2010-2020, we lost 3 million farms – falling from 12 to 9 million – and 800 farms disappeared every day, mainly due to a lack of young farmers willing to take over their holdings. On average, the age of farmers in the European Union is 57, and more than a third of European farmers are over 65 years old. We have a system of support for young farmers in the common agricultural policy as a part of the CAP reform. We have increased funding for this aid, but the key to tackling generation renewal lies not only in agriculture policy. For young people to want to work in agriculture, we need not only to improve the economic conditions in agriculture, but also to improve rural livelihoods. National and European policies, such as cohesion policy and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development have a key role to play. Access to public services, public transport, education, health and cultural goods must be increased for rural residents. Rural residents have a right to the same living conditions as city dwellers, and this should be a guiding principle of all EU policies. We stress this in the European Union’s long-term vision for rural areas for 2040. I would like to thank the rapporteur, Ms Mortler, for your proposal to prepare a strategy for generational renewal in agriculture. This is an idea which is worthy of consideration. Finally, let me also thank you for addressing the budgetary issues in this report. This is my personal view – not an official position – but a CAP budget of 0.4% of GDP will not be able to respond effectively to the big challenges faced by agriculture in this major crisis. This is also a risk that more and more farmers will abandon direct payments, recognising that they are not fully compensated for the burden of participating in the common agricultural policy. In particular, we need to strengthen community crisis management instruments and funds. The agricultural reserve of 450 million is not sufficient in the situation of deep and widespread crisis. We are increasingly turning to national public aid as a part of the war crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. Member States have provided more than EUR 7 billion in aid to farmers – and this it is justified and needed. But on the other hand, it causes inequalities in competition in the common market. We have a common market, a common agricultural policy, so crisis aid should be shared, but much more resources are needed for crisis management. Honourable Members, thank you again for this debate for the very good and much needed report. Ms Mortler, I will listen carefully to your views on strengthening food security not only for us, but also for future generations.