Letter from Brussels - April 2025

‘Hello money’ was an issue and for fruit and veg growers in north county Dublin, for example, and there were dreadful stories of how they were treated by the big multiples.
Unfair trading practice is now a thing across the European Union (EU) and to be fair to the European Commission, it seems to be listening to farmers’ concerns now, something it didn’t do during most of the last Commission mandate.
President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, Christoph Hansen, have committed to strengthening farmers’ position in the agri-food supply chain, as well as enhancing cross-border enforcement against unfair trading practices. This includes ‘making written contracts a general obligation and improving the way long-term contracts take into account market developments and fluctuations of costs and economic conditions’.
From an Irish co-operative perspective, while any measures aimed at bolstering the interests of the producer in the supply chain are welcome, because of the dairy co-operative system in Ireland, mandatory contracts are not a legislative requirement and the prevailing system of milk suppliers supplying to their co-operatives functions well.
Elsewhere in the EU Commission proposal, Member States would be obliged to establish a mediation mechanism to cover cases in which there is no mutual agreement to conclude a contract. 

A bit like the dent in Fr Ted’s car, in attempting to fix one problem sometimes another unnecessary one can be created. But that is the beauty of the EU – how legislative proposals are in the spirit of being fair and sustainable. But what is good for the goose is not necessarily always good for the gander.
All that said, simplifying the red tape and bureaucracy of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is another part of the EU Commission commitment to farmers, is something that nobody can quibble with. And farm groups and co-operative organisations across the EU are feeling listened to once more with Commissioner Hansen telling MEPs at the March meeting of the Parliament’s agriculture committee in Strasbourg: “When I speak to farmers, 

I hear a strong call for stability and predictability, and also for the recognition of the crucial role that farming and rural areas play in Europe’s economy, security and strategic autonomy.”
In selling his ‘Vision for the future of Agriculture’ to MEPs he said, ‘farmers must be preserved across the continent, and the vision identifies European food sovereignty as an integral part of the EU security agenda’. The days of farmers being bullied by the big multiples seem to be coming to an end.