News

Last week, Member States voted within the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed on the renewal of the license for the use of chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl; states voted against further use of both substances. The decision must now be formally approved by the European Commission, probably in January 2020, and Member States will then have to withdraw all authorizations for products containing these substances. A short three-month transition period will be introduced, after which substances will no longer be placed on the market or used in the EU.

Around 160 non-governmental animal welfare organizations supported the call to the European Commission for the introduction of legislation to end cage farming in the EU. In a joint letter to the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission (Frans Timmermans), the Commissioner for Agriculture (Janusz Wojciechowski) and the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety (Stella Kyriakides), the organizations supported a citizens' initiative called End of the Cage, which managed to secure a record 1.6 million signatures of citizens from a number of EU countries. According to animal welfare organizations in the European Union, more than 300 million animals each year spend a significant part of their lives in cages - the letter mentions mainly laying hens and rabbits that are kept in an A4-sized paper space. According to organizations, intensive livestock production leads to the suffering of millions of animals, is not sustainable and is one of the reasons for the current climate change.
More information is available here.

The European Commission announced on 02/12/2019 that the EU Platform for Animal Welfare, which is regularly organized and which is attended by EU experts and representatives of non-governmental animal welfare organizations, will remain active until 30 June 2021 at the latest. According to the EC statement, the next meeting is planned for the first semester of 2020. The platform was established by Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis in 2017.
More information is available here.

Norwegian company Kezzler presented its TrackEasy technology at the AIPIA (Active & Intelligent Packiging Industry Association) World Congress held in Amsterdam on 18-19/11/2019. TrackEasy was developed for the Dutch dairy producer FrieslandCampina, who is committed to ensuring full traceability of its products in response to consumers' demands for increased transparency and information on the origin and production of products. FrieslandCampina consumers will now receive product information through the scanned QR code, from the milk collection in NL, packing date, in-process quality controls to importing the product to the destination. TrackEasy technology enables the traceability of Friso products in 25 countries around the world; its future use for other large food producers is not excluded.
More information is available here.

The new European Commission plans to increase trade in agricultural products with African countries over the next 5 years, even more intensively than with China or the US. A representative of the Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture announced on 03/12/2019 that the Commission is planning to complete free trade agreements (FTA's) with African countries by approximately 2026 to 2030, as Africa has great untapped trade potential. Furthermore, the Commission plans to finalize the negotiation of trade agreements with Indonesia, Chile, New Zealand and Australia, and to implement the agreements that have already been negotiated, including Mercosur, Mexico, Vietnam and Japan.