Europeiska ekonomiska och sociala kommittén
Opinion on The importance of agricultural trade for the future development of agriculture and farming in the EU in the context of global food security
Growing global demand for food and the financial investors' interest in the agricultural sector have led to large-scale acquisitions, also known as "land grabbing", of farming land all over the world. .
The aim of the opinion is to take stock of the land grabbing phenomenon in the EU, and to discuss its extent and various causes. The document should explain the implications of this process for the environment, jobs, the local population, rural life and food security. It focuses on large-scale acquisitions of agricultural land (including the associated bodies of water), which should be seen as a natural resource.
As 2014 has been designated as the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) by the UN, the opinion will also contribute to the debate in this context.
Up to 50% of food gets wasted in EU households, supermarkets, restaurants and along the food supply chain each year, while 79 million EU citizens live beneath the poverty line and 16 million depend on food aid from charitable institutions. The proposed own-initiative opinion should give impetus to draw up at the European level a coordinated strategy, combining EU-wide and national measures, to improve the efficiency of food supply and consumption chains and to tackle food wastage as a matter of urgency.
At the request of the French Presidency of the Council of the EU, in the opinion on Food security and sustainable food systems adopted at its plenary session on 19 January 2022, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) identified the key levers for sustainable and competitive EU food production and for reducing dependence on imports while increasing the EU's protein autonomy.
The Exploratory opinion on "More sustainable food systems" (Rapporteur: Mindaugas Maciulevičius), requested by the Netherlands presidency of the EU, was adopted by the EESC at its plenary session on 26 May 2016. The opinion calls for the development of a comprehensive food policy in the EU and for an ...
From agricultural to food policy – Towards healthy and sustainable production and consumption - 21 April 2016, The Hague
Farmers, consumers, academics and policy-maker were among the wide range of participants at a Group III 'Various Interests" European Economic and Social Committee event in the Netherlands to examine the future of food production and consumption.
On Friday, 14 April 2023, the NAT Section is organising a public hearing "Towards a European Food Policy Council / Sustainable Food System" to feed into the own-initiative opinion NAT/892- Towards a European Food Policy Council as a new governance model in the future EU Framework on Sustainable Food Systems in order to compile the views of the civil society organisations working on these issues.
