Letter from Brussels - May 2024

It would be Europe’s ‘man on the moon moment’ according to EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. For agriculture, the subheading was the Farm to Fork strategy, which aimed to halve the use of pesticides, fertilisers and the sale of antimicrobials, promote sustainable diets, improve animal welfare, and increase organic farming production. It was a welcome document insofar as at least there was a plan. Now all that was needed was some dialogue with those most affected, the farmers.
Astonishingly it didn’t happen. Commission vice-president, Frans Timmermans was charged with driving the Farm to Fork strategy while largely ignoring farm groups in the process. Not even a global pandemic followed by the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine could stop the Dutchman from pushing ahead with various pieces of legislation, which would simply never make it across the line without some form of dialogue and compromise with farmers and food producers across Europe. Last summer, he stepped away from the job to lead the Green party in the Dutch elections. Whether it’s a coincidence or not, following his departure, the EU Commission began to take onboard the concerns of farmers about various aspects of the strategy.
It began with an acknowledgement of the important role of European farmers by President von der Leyen in her State of the Union address last September, which led to the establishment of the ‘strategic dialogue’ involving 29 agriculture and environmental representatives to halt the polarisation between food production and environmental sustainability. We await the outcome of those tense discussions, which are continuing as we speak. Then, earlier this year the Sustainable Use Regulation was effectively binned as MEPs could not reach any form of consensus on how this would operate satisfactorily. And, last month, the Commission agreed to simplify aspects of the Common Agricultural Policy where conditionality in relation to Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAECs) was causing problems mainly for farmers in continental Europe. Meanwhile, the Commission also committed to strengthen the position of farmers in the food chain.
It has been quite the about turn. Critics suggest that the Commission has caved in to ugly farm protests and the infiltration of the far right to farmer concerns weeks out from the European elections. But the most obvious reason for this is the late realisation by the Commission that its failure to engage properly with farmers from the beginning was a big mistake. The EU Green Deal is an important project, and the next EU Commission will continue to drive it forward, albeit with some resistance if the conservative groupings in the Parliament increase after June. But the farming targets can only be achieved by including farmers in the process rather than shunning them.