The benefits of introducing legislation to help combat unfair trading practices in the food chain and to ensure that farmers get a fairer share of the price paid by consumers were underlined at a high-level workshop organized by Copa and Cogeca in Brussels today.
The work shop was attended by MEP Sofia Ribeiro as well as representatives from the EU Commission, EU Council and other key stakeholders.
With farmers getting only 20% of the price of steak, Chairman of Copa & Cogecas food chain working party Joe Healy stressed “My reaction to recommendations made by the EU Agri Markets Task Force chaired by Cees Veerman to improve farmers weak position in the food chain is very positive. And I hope that it will lead to more fairness in the food chain. We need to give farmers confidence in the whole food chain if we are to have a viable sector. It is clear that voluntary initiatives do not work. They failed to bring the necessary change in retailers behaviour. We need legislation at EU level with independent enforcement by an authority to combat unfair practices and sanction those who do not comply with it. Legislation already exists in around 20 Member States but it’s important to have a EU wide one to ensure a level playing field. Below cost selling must stop”.
Mandatory written contracts between farmers, processors and retailers are also important to give farmers the necessary proof to back them up when problems occur. We also support the initiative to increase market transparency and to further develop futures markets. Futures markets are a key tool to give farmers and their cooperative some predictability and to reduce market volatility. Other tools to help protect farmers against risk like crop insurance are also important and we expect to see more on this in the EU Commission’s plans on the future CAP.
At Copa & Cogeca, we are further developing our position on risk management tools and a report from our task force on this will be out soon. Producers organisations also help to improve farmers positioning in the chain.
EU Farm Ministers have also supported the report and EU Farm Commission Phil Hogan said that support has been growing to implement the legislation through recommendations and the Commission will table proposals if it gets support from the services responsible for internal market and competition. European Parliament has also adopted a report in favour of such legislation. It has been marked as one of the priorities by the Maltese Presidency who aims to discuss it at Ministers meeting in March. The task force was set up to look at solutions to the extreme volatility existing on EU agricultural markets and to help secure a more viable future for farmers and their cooperatives.
