News

The European Anti-Fraud Network and Europol have recently uncovered two major food fraud cases in the EU. The first case concerned the illegal importation, trading and advertising of food contact materials such as plastic tableware and cutlery that contained bamboo. 21 countries participated in the project and 748 cases of plastic materials containing unapproved components were reported. Most of the illegal plastics came from China. The second case of fraud was discovered by the Spanish Civil Guard together with Europol, it involved the illegal sale of horse meat unfit for human consumption. Companies altered the traceability of horsemeat mainly from Spain by falsifying identification and transfer documents. The untraceable meat was sold on the Spanish, Belgian, German and Italian markets.
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On 14/12/2022, the European Commission adopted revised State aid rules for the agriculture, forestry, fishing and aquaculture sector. The revision focused on aligning State aid rules with the strategic priorities of the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy and the European Green Deal. The Commission revised the Agricultural Block Exemption Regulation (ABER) and the Fishery Block Exemption Regulation (FIBER) and added new guidelines on State aid in the agriculture and forestry sectors and in rural areas and guidelines on State aid in fisheries and aquaculture. At the same time, the European Commission extended the validity of the regulation on de minimis support in the fishing sector until 31/12/2023.
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On 07/12/2022, the European Statistical Office Eurostat published a report entitled "Key figures on the European food chain", in which it provides statistics on farms, farmers, agricultural production, prices, etc. According to the results of the statistics, from 2005 to 2020, the number of agricultural enterprises decreased by 37%, while the area of utilized agricultural land remained unchanged. Most of the defunct farms were smaller than 5 hectares. Moreover, in these fifteen years, the type of farms is still changing, there is an observable shift from mixed farming (livestock and crop production) to growing crops only. Only the Netherlands and Malta retained a predominant mixed economy. The number of food and drink businesses has not changed since 2011, but turnover increased by €459 billion and value added increased by 35.5%.
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European institutions reached an agreement in the first half of last week on legislation aimed at combating global deforestation and forest degradation because of EU production and consumption. The new rules will ensure that key goods placed on the EU market no longer contribute to deforestation and forest degradation in the EU or elsewhere in the world. This should help to largely halt global deforestation and forest degradation. Once the new rules come into force, all relevant companies will have to exercise due diligence when placing on the EU market or exporting palm oil, cattle, soya, coffee, cocoa, wood, rubber, or products derived from these commodities (furniture, chocolate, beef). These commodities were selected because of their significant impact on deforestation. The proposal for a solution was presented by the Commission a year ago, the final version is based on the main elements proposed by the Commission, which are the fight against deforestation regardless of whether it is legal or illegal, strict traceability requirements to link commodities to the agricultural land where they were produced, and the system of comparing individual countries. Businesses and traders will have to prove that the products do not cause deforestation (were produced on land that was not exposed to deforestation after 31/12/2020) and that they are legal (in compliance with all relevant legislation in force in the country of production). Companies will also need to collect accurate geographic information about the farmland where the commodities they source were grown to verify that those commodities are compliant.
More information is available here and here.

On 08/12/2022, the European Commission launched a dashboard, an interactive overview, which aims to present a wide range of indicators affecting food supply and food security in the EU (weather, drought, transport and energy costs, animal diseases and possible trade restrictions). The special monitoring part should provide data on the level of self-sufficiency in the most important agricultural commodities and the shares of imports of these commodities and fertilizers into the EU and EU countries. Monthly rates of food inflation in the EU will also be displayed. The European Commission announced its intention to launch this overview in the Communication on the Contingency Plan for food supply and food security in times of crisis, presented in November 2021. All information provided will be regularly updated depending on the availability of data. During 2023, the dashboard will be further enhanced with automated visualizations and will also include a qualitative assessment of food supply and food security in the EU based on input data provided by EFSCM members (Expert Group for the European Food Security Crisis Preparedness and Response Mechanism) three times a year.
More information is available here.