News

The report of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE), published on 23/08/2021, draws attention to the 22% increase in Rapid Alert System for Food and F (RASFF) alerts in 2020 compared to 2019. The total number of exchange reports in the RASFF system in 2020 rose to the highest number to date 14,997. The number of notifications concerning pesticides has risen sharply, although authorizations for several frequently used active substances have not been renewed in the last few years. The number of alerts has doubled in the last seven years, with the most frequently reported problem being the presence of ethylene oxide in sesame seeds. The increased number of reports of exceedances of pesticide limits mainly concerns the category of fruit and vegetables, especially for production imported from Turkey.
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The British Ministry of Agriculture DEFRA has approved the first trial cultivation of genetically modified wheat modified by the DNA modification technique, the so-called CRISPR. It is the first country in Europe to take a similar step. The wheat is modified to have reduced levels of naturally occurring asparagine, which is converted to the carcinogenic acrylamide during bread baking. The presence of acrylamide in food has been discussed since 2002. In that year, it was confirmed that acrylamide causes cancer in rodents and is probably carcinogenic to humans. The aim of the project is therefore to reduce consumer exposure to acrylamide. The five-year pilot cultivation project will run until September 2026.
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European agricultural organizations, including Copa-Cogeca, Euroseeds, Fertilizers Europe and CropLife Europe, have commissioned an impact assessment for the implementation of the objectives of the Farm to Fork strategy and Biodiversity strategy. The impact assessment is being prepared by the Dutch Wageningen University. The European agricultural organizations decided to take this step after the European Commission did not respond in the long term to calls from the professional public for a similar cumulative impact study. According to the European media, the impact assessment is practically complete, leaving only the final completion and finalization of the text. The assessment could be published in late September 2021 or early October 2021. So far, the only study on the impact of both strategies is a study by the US Department of Agriculture, according to which the implementation of the Farm to Fork targets could lead to a drop in production in the EU by up to 12%, to an increase food prices in the EU by up to 17%, to a drop in EU farmers' incomes by 16%, or to a drop in EU exports by 20% and, conversely, a strengthening of imports by 2%.

German Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner and Austrian Agriculture Minister Elisabeth Köstinger signed a joint statement on 26/08/2021, criticizing the EU's new forestry strategy for 2030. The main criticism concerns the interference with Member States' sovereignty in forest management. The Ministers emphasize that forests cover 43.5% of European land. According to the Ministers, the unification of forestry policy is not justified, and the strategy should focus more on existing national forestry strategies. On 01/09/2021, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Janusz Wojciechowski will give a presentation on the EU's forestry strategy to the EP's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (agenda is available here).
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The European citizens' initiative (ECI), called European EcoScore, registered by the European Commission on 30/06/2021, started collecting signatures of EU citizens on 23/07/2021. The aim of this citizens' initiative, led by two law students organizing an initiative in Belgium and the Netherlands, is to persuade the Commission to introduce EcoScore labels at European level. The EcoScore should provide consumers with transparent information on the environmental impact of the production of products sold and manufactured on the European market. According to the initiative, the label should appear on all products produced in the EU, both on food and, for example, on textiles. The initiative supports a system like the French nutrition label Nutri-Score, but also gives space to the European Commission's own proposal. The Commission will have to respond to this initiative if it collects at least one million signatures from citizens in at least seven different EU Member States during the year.
More information is available here.