News

Dairy farmers gathered in front of the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels yesterday (October 26) to demand measures to improve their income security in the face of recurring crises in the dairy sector. They called on the EU executive to establish a volume reduction scheme, legally anchored in the Common Agricultural Policy, to ensure Europe’s milk production responds to fluctuations in price.

The Standing Committee on Plant Animal Food and Feed met earlier on Wednesday (October 25) to discuss renewing the licence for the glyphosate. A debate took place but no vote was taken because of the conflicting positions of the member states. Those EU countries led by the UK, known to be strongly supportive of a full ten-year renewal, refused to put a shorter re-authorisation to vote. The UK, Ireland and Spain are strong supporters of glyphosate and sources explained that they are unlikely to agree to a shorter than 10 years renewal.

Fifty-two new programmes aimed at promoting EU agri-food products in Europe and across the world have been approved by the European Commission. Covering a wide range of foods from dairy products and olive oil to fruit and vegetables and meat products, these programmes are supported by grants from the EU's common agricultural policy budget. Read more.

European Parliament backed a full ban on glyphosate-based herbicides by December 2022 and immediate restrictions on the use of the substance, on Tuesday. The non-binding resolution was adopted by 355 votes to 204, with 111 abstentions. EU member states will vote on a Commission proposal to renew the marketing authorisation of glyphosate on Wednesday. Read more.

This month's report focuses on agri-food trade with Russia. After an initial drop, both in banned products and non-banned products, EU exports of non-banned products to Russia resumed growth and reached € 6 299 million in the period September 2016 to August 2017, which represents an increase in value by 14% compared to the previous period. This brings back Russia now to be the 4th biggest export destination for EU agri-food products, just before Japan. The full report is online.