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Last week, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Janusz Wojciechowski reiterated its support for the CAP budget beyond 2020. He said the new Farm to Fork Strategy must lead to a significant strengthening of the sustainable development of the agricultural sector in the EU. Farm to Fork rules must, however, be set fairly across Member States - agricultural reality, according to Wojciechowski, is fundamentally different in terms of production intensity, the amount of pesticides, fertilizers or antibiotics used. According to the Commissioner, these differences must be taken into account when planning the next steps. The Commissioner also stated that the Action Plan for Organic Farming should be presented either at the end of 2020 or early 2021. According to Wojciechowski, the development of organic farming will be one of the main tasks of the Commission of the CAP and the Environment and Climate Action. It should also include support for organic production, strengthening the market share of organic food and enhancing production diversity. The Commissioner also stressed the need to address rural depopulation, generational change, and external convergence of direct payments.

Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides said last week that the European Commission is still working on a Communication on the Farm to Fork Strategy, which should be published in the week 25-31/03/2020. Reducing the amount of chemicals used in agriculture should be one of the key priorities of the Strategy, and other key priorities should be food labelling to provide consumers with easy access to food information. One option could be the NutriScore labelling system, however, according to Kyriakides, labelling should in any case be harmonized at EU level.
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Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides said last week that the new Farm to Fork Strategy will propose legislative and non-legislative steps for the future, based on three main pillars - reducing pesticides, reducing fertilizers and antibiotics, and strengthening food information to consumers. According to Kyriakides, the Commission will set realistic targets for the planned reduction. One of the main tools for achieving the objectives of the Strategy should then be the Common Agricultural Policy. According to the first version of the Communication on the Strategy leaked last week, the Commission should, within a few years (not yet specified), set a mandatory target for reducing the volume and risks associated with the use of synthetic chemical pesticides; the process of achieving the target will be monitored annually by the Commission and for each Member State. The Farm to Fork Strategy should also set a percentage target for strengthening the area under organic farming and targets for reducing antibiotics and mineral and organic fertilizers. The Commission should also present a legislative proposal to harmonize the nutrition labelling on the front of food packaging, not yet explicitly mentioning NutriScore support. From the initial document, it seems that the Commission will set targets mainly for 2030. The European Commission could also focus attention on promoting plant alternatives to animal products - according to the Commission changing dietary habits for a healthier diet, including the shift from animal protein to plant protein can not only reduce the risk of developing life-threatening diseases such as cancer, but can also reduce the environmental impact of the food system.

A representative of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture Tassos Haniotis said last week that targets for reducing the amount of fertilizer used could be set at different levels depending on local and regional conditions, soil quality, and nutrient content in the soil. According to Haniotis, the nutrient content of the soil could help to identify not only areas where the volume of fertilizer used needs to be significantly reduced, but also areas where the supply of nutrients to the soil needs to be strengthened. Haniotis also stated that while the EU reduced agricultural emissions by 22% between 1990 and 2016, agricultural emissions in the US increased by 6%, in China and India by 24%, and in Brazil by 47%.
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In an interview with Politico last week, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Executive Director Bernhard Url said that any pan-European target for reducing pesticide use would not be based on scientific grounds, but would be a purely political step. All figures that appear so far in this context are scientifically unfounded.