News

The Polish government has put forward a proposal for national legislation aimed at protecting farmers from unfair commercial practices in the retail chain. Legislation should prevent producers from buying agricultural commodities at extremely low prices, so food producers will be obliged to conclude written contracts with farmers. The proposal also allows the Ministry of Agriculture to determine the minimum period for which contracts should be in force, while setting minimum prices for certain agricultural commodities.
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European food producers headed by Nestlé have supported the introduction of a Europe-wide harmonized nutrition labelling system for food packaging with Nutriscore (colour scheme labelling that should allow consumers to better orient themselves in food purchases and prefer healthier foods). According to Nestlé CEO, Nutriscore has already received support in France, Belgium and Switzerland, other countries have shown interest in implementing the system, and the Commission should therefore consider introducing Nutriscore as a Europe-wide labelling scheme. Nestlé has committed itself to the implementation of Nutriscore in the past week. The European Commission should publish in mid-July a report summarizing best practice on nutrition labelling. While food producers do not expect any major proposals to change the system, they believe that the report should reopen the debate on the introduction of a Europe-wide unified system.

African swine fever infection in China continues to spread, according to some sources the number of pigs in farms has been reduced by up to half, either by discharging the disease outbreak or by the consequences of the disease itself. As a result of this dramatic decline in the number of pigs in farms, pork prices have raised, which could increase by up to 70% in the coming weeks, and the living standard of a large proportion of the total of 40 million pork producers to decline.
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The Austrian government voted on 02/07/2019 to ban the use of glyphosate, a herbicide that, according to some studies, may cause cancer. The ban on the use of glyphosate was approved; the proposal was supported by the Social Democrats (SPÖ), the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), the liberal NEOS and the left-wing JETZT. Austria thus became the first European Union country to ban the use of this substance. The ban should enter into force at the beginning of 2020. The middle-right People's Party (ÖVP) did not support the proposal, according to its representatives, adoption of the banned will do harm to all farmers using this active substance in accordance with the rules. Glyphosate is authorized in EU Member States until the end of 2022, after which negotiations will be held to extend the license to use the substance.

At the end of June, the Transport & Environment Group (T&E) published the results of its investigation, which showed that up to 65% of all EU palm oil imports are processed for biofuel production. According to T&E, there is a direct link between the promotion of biofuels in the EU and deforestation in third countries, which produce palm oil for European biofuels. According to T&E, in 2018 the European Union processed more than 4 million tonnes of palm oil to produce bio-diesel, and in the period 2014-2020, the EU contributed EUR 4.2 billion to deforestation, which is well over EUR 3.4 billion that has been earmarked for the same period to protect the environment and climate under the LIFE project. Following its findings, T&E urged EU Member States to stop the import of palm oil.
More information is available here.