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Representatives of a total of thirteen European agricultural organizations, including the largest Copa and Cogeca, called on the European Commission on 27/05/2021 to carry out a cumulative assessment of the effects of the Farm to Fork strategy on the agricultural sector, before any legislative action is taken. According to representatives of agricultural organizations, an impact assessment is necessary to identify areas where activities need to be strengthened, but also the tools that should be used to implement these activities. Agricultural organizations also call on the Commission to ensure that the objectives covered by the European Green Deal are coherent, that they respect economic, environmental, and social sustainability, that they are measurable, realistic, and achievable.
More information is available here.

The European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (COMENVI) adopted its opinion on the EU biodiversity strategy on 28/05/2021. Although the COMENVI has key competences for this strategy, the EP Committee on Agriculture (COMAGRI) has also adopted its opinion on areas related to the agricultural sector. Following the vote in COMENVI, COMAGRI members sharply criticized the COMENVI final report, stating that COMENVI had not considered any of the COMAGRI's recommendations. COMAGRI members therefore decided to table their amendments directly to the plenary of the European Parliament. Parliament should debate the opinion on 07/06/2021, the vote should take place on 08/06/2021. In its opinion, COMENVI supported making the objectives of the biodiversity strategy legally binding, however, COMAGRI calls for the opinion to be added that, to reduce the need to use pesticides and to reduce the risks associated with the use of chemical pesticides, a range of alternative, effective, affordable, and environmentally friendly plant protection methods and practices must be available to farmers. COMAGRI is also calling for adjustments in the sections on forestry and bioenergy.

On 01/06/2021, the European Commission published a new report on the assessment of the Impact of the CAP on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. According to the results of the evaluation, emissions from agriculture in the EU fell by more than 20% between 1990 and 2020. However, the report points out that after 2010, agricultural production increased by 9%, and since then the process of reducing emissions from agriculture has slowed down significantly. According to the authors of the report (Alliance for the Environment), only a minimum of CAP instruments is targeted at adaptation to climate change, the authors of the report included, for example, crop diversification, redistributive payments, coupled support for protein crops, organic farming, and payments for areas with natural or other constraints (ANC) among the tools beneficial to the climate. According to the authors of the evaluation, CAP direct payments represent a suitable investment opportunity for further adaptation to climatic conditions. On the contrary, the report criticizes, for example, risk management tools, which help to protect farmers from economic losses caused by emergencies, but do not motivate farmers to prevent these losses and to strengthen the resilience of agriculture.
More information is available here and here.

In connection with the plan to strengthen animal welfare, Germany is proposing to stop the long-distance transport of live animals. This was stated last week by the German Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner. Packaged meat and genetic material should be transported instead of animals. Germany also plans to support the French initiative being prepared for the forthcoming French Presidency (first half of 2022) aimed at developing a common strategy for labelling the country of origin and nutritional value of food (France and Germany support NutriScore labelling).

On 04/06/2021, the Commission launched feedback on conversion to a Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN). The initiative aims to extend the scope of the current network collecting data on EU farms to include data on their environmental and social practices. The consultation is open until 02/07/2021, available here.