Land Use Policy Group Foreword

The Land Use Policy Group (LUPG) of the UK statutory nature conservation, countryside and environmental agencies provides advice to, but is independent of, Government.

A key consideration for the EU Budget and the future Common Agricultural Policy will be identifying the expenditure needed to achieve defined public environmental objectives.

The purpose of this research was to identify indicators capable of being used at the UK level as the basis for estimating the scale of environmental land management activity necessary to meet current policy objectives.  The contractors were then asked to estimate how much it might cost to deliver the management required.

This was a challenging exercise.  To the best of our knowledge, it had never before been attempted for the UK. Inevitably the work incorporated a number of major assumptions which need to be fully understood when interpreting the results. In particular:

The costs presented in this report do not make allowance for:

The costs shown in this report are also sensitive to a number of other assumptions (which are set out in full in the report).  The key ones are highlighted here:

Taken together the overall impact of these assumptions means that the costs we have presented may significantly underestimate the total funding necessary within the UK.  Nevertheless, our work indicates that the scale of the environmental land management challenge is substantial (in excess of three times that currently available from existing CAP Pillar 2 allocations - but still less than the total current spend on Pillars 1 and 2 combined).  The scale of need is hardly surprising bearing in mind that most of the environmental services required by wider society (including the management of carbon, water, biodiversity and landscapes) are currently unrewarded by conventional markets.  It is evident that much more work remains to be done before we can fully calculate the true costs of all of the management required, as well as the necessary delivery systems. Nevertheless, we trust that this report will contribute to the debate, not least by providing a methodological framework and identifying the wide range of assumptions that needs testing in future.  It would be helpful to see similar exercises undertaken in other member states, especially those with significantly different agricultural sectors and environmental objectives.

Please find the report here.

Rob Cooke
Chair of Land Use Policy Group

 

List of LUFPIG re-elected Members

Please find in the following link, the list with all LUFPIG re-elected Members.

 

Event (May 2009)

Meetings

On Tuesday, 17th March, LUFPIG was present in two meetings that took place in the European Parliament. In the first one “On-Farm Containment”, scientists from Bangor University in Wales have given a presentation on a new technology they have developed for on-farm containment. The "bio-reducer" allows for safe bioreduction pending disposal by rendering or incineration. This technology will be possible should the Environment's Committee's position on the Schnellhardt animal byproducts regulation be adopted by plenary at the end of March. In the second event, "Agriculture: Nourishing people without biting the climate", as a result of a multi-stakeholder dialogue the final version of a study was presented in the beginning of this year by a unique expert group, composed of government officials, UN agencies, business and civil society, which can be interpreted as a paradigm shift in global agriculture and environment policies. This "International Assessment of Agriculture, Science, Technology and Development" (IAASTD www.agassessment.org) shows that large scale agricultural structures, as they were promoted by agronomists in the last decades, will not be able to cope with the pressing key challenges. This study outlines that without small-scale farming we will not succeed to cope successfully with issues as food security, biodiversity and climate change. Parallel to this IAASTD, the development NGO Misereor and the Heinrich Boll Foundation worked on the "Ecofair Trade Dialogue" report (www.ecofair-trade.org) coming to similar conclusions, but more strongly based on the trade aspect.

 

"Can You Dig It?" in Finantial Times Weekend Magazine

By Fiona Harvey

Published: February 28 2009 02:00 | Last updated: February 28 2009 02:00

In Brazil's Amazon basin, farmers have long sought out a special form of fertiliser - a locally sourced compost-like substance prized for its amazing qualities of reviving poor or exhausted soils. They buy it in sacks or dig it out of the earth from patches that are sometimes as much as 6ft deep. Spread on fields, it retains its fertile qualities for long periods.

They call it the terra preta do indio - literally, "the dark earth of the Indians". Dense, rich and loamy, this earth forms a stark contrast with the thin, poor soils of the region. (It seems a paradox, but rainforest soils have low fertility. This is why farmers who cut down the forest for agriculture have to keep on felling - after a few years of cropping, yields collapse and they have to move on.) Patches of terra preta extend for many hectares in some places but until recently, no one really knew what the mysterious dark earth was. Some guessed it was volcanic, or the sediment of old lakes, or the residue of some long-rotted vegetation. Few imagined that it was man-made.

Terra preta, modern analysis has proved, is one of the last remaining traces of pre-Columbian agriculture in the Amazon basin. It was made more than 2,500 - and perhaps as long as 6,000 - years ago by people living by the river. These cultures survived and supported complex agriculture, despite poor soil, by making their own earth. They used dung, fish, animal bones and plant waste - the usual suspects. But the key ingredient in terra preta, and what gives it its dark colour, is charcoal.

"It's wonderful stuff," says Simon Shackley, a social science lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. "We started to get to know about it when Dutch scientists began to look at it in the 1960s. They found these dark soils in this area of very poor soil, where it was being put on fields like compost. It's really the product of slash-and-burn agriculture, and other organic waste, incorporated into the soils over hundreds or even thousands of years - and it does appear to be fertile indefinitely, which is really a very odd thing."

This ancient product of the Amazon is now the subject of intense scrutiny by climate change scientists. The tenacity of the charcoal of terra preta - retaining its fertilising properties over centuries - has given them an idea. Charcoal is a form of carbon, the burnt remains of plant and animal material. If it can stay intact in the earth for so long, without being released as carbon dioxide gas, why not lock up more carbon in the earth in this manner?

Scientists have begun to refer to the charcoal made from plants for the purpose of storing carbon as "biochar". The theory is that biomass - any plant or animal material - can be turned into charcoal by heating it in the absence of oxygen. By taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, the impact on climate change could be huge.

Soils naturally contain large quantities of carbon, from decayed vegetation. But this carbon is relatively unstable, in climate terms - soils give off CO2 when they are disturbed, by ploughing for example, making them as much a carbon source as a carbon sink. So the idea of trying to lock up carbon in soils has found little favour among climate scientists - indeed, it has even gained a bad name, as farmers have sought to cash in by claiming their fields should qualify for the carbon credits intended to provide financial support to projects such as wind farms or solar power plants.

What is different about biochar is that the stability of the charcoal should make it possible to lock away the carbon it contains for hundreds of years. The carbon is mineralised, so it's very resistant to breaking down. What's more, the ancillary benefits - not just its soil-improving characteristics, but certain byproducts of its manufacture - should be enough to make it economically attractive.

When it's made, about a third of the biomass is turned to char, a third is turned to syngas that can be burned to generate electricity, and a third into a crude oil substitute that could be very useful in making plastics, though it would be hard to use as a transport fuel. Tim Flannery, the eminent Australian explorer and naturalist (see profile, page 24), argues that these properties of biochar "allow us to address three or four critical crises at once: the climate change crisis, the energy crisis, and the food and water crises", because putting biochar in the soil not only fertilises the soil, but also helps it to retain water.

Just how much could biochar do to change the world's carbon balance? There is little doubt of the enormous amount required.

Every year, human activities - burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests, converting grassland to crops and so on - contribute eight to 10 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere. Most of that carbon does not go on to damage the climate - the world has a natural carbon cycle, by which carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is absorbed and re-emitted by "carbon sinks" of vegetation, soils, the seas and other natural processes. But these processes are being severely overloaded, so the carbon content of the atmosphere is rising. At present, it stands at about 387 parts per million, certainly higher than at any time in the last 650,000 years and probably in the last 20 million.

According to the Global Carbon Project, between 2000 and 2007, the land and ocean carbon sinks - such as forests, and plankton in the ocean - removed about 54 per cent, or 4.8 billion tonnes a year of the carbon that humans pumped into the atmosphere.

That leaves a carbon surplus of about 4 billion tonnes or so per year, which we need to find ways to reduce or absorb. Moreover, the amount absorbed by natural sinks is declining as land and oceans warm, meaning every year we must either work even harder to remove carbon from the air, or stop emitting it. Even as governments talk of a "low-carbon economy", global greenhouse gas emissions are rising fast. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world authority on climate science, emissions must peak in the period 2015 to 2020 if we are to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. On present projections, that will be impossible - unless a way can be found to make available cheap, easy methods of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and of generating clean electricity in ways that can be adopted around the world much more quickly than current renewable technologies.

According to some early estimates of biochar's potential, this wonder substance alone could achieve all the carbon reductions necessary to prevent further global warming. Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University and others calculated that biochar could remove between 5.5 and 9.5 billion tonnes of carbon from the air each year. But those estimates relied on heroic assumptions about the ability to make biochar easily around the world, says Shackley. "There has been a tendency to withdraw from some of the very large figures lately," he notes. "Now, I would say people are talking more about something in the range of one to two billion tonnes a year."

This may seem disappointing in comparison with previous grandiose claims, but it still represents an impressive potential contribution from a single method, Shackley says. "It's certainly not trivial," agrees Tim Lenton, professor of earth systems science at the University of East Anglia. "It might be a good-sized slice of what we need, and it has sizeable side benefits - it's win-win." If other carbon-reducing techniques - such as preserving and regrowing forests, increasing the share of energy from renewables, and the push for energy efficiency - were pursued simultaneously, the world could make the cuts needed in our "carbon budget" to stave off climate disaster.

This potential, and the unique and sometimes mysterious qualities of biochar, are making it one of the most exciting new areas of climate change research. The idea of sequestering carbon through biochar has gained some heavy-hitting scientific backers, such as James Lovelock, the maverick scientist whose Gaia hypothesis has come back into vogue. Scientists at Cornell University, led by Lehmann, are working on ways to sequestrate carbon in biochar-enriched soil. In the UK, a biochar research centre has been set up at Edinburgh university; other European countries are following suit, and research projects are under way in countries from Canada to Australia. A few companies are in the early stages of trying to find ways to commercialise biochar production.

Biochar even has its own song - "The Biochar Blues" - written by members of the International Biochar Initiative (see below).

Charcoal is, of course, nothing new. People have been making it for millennia, chiefly for fuel. The process is simple: take wood, or straw or the waste from crops, and heat it in the absence of oxygen. Traditionally, this was done by heaping earth on top of the lit biomass so that it smouldered for a long time. Modern kilns can make the process more efficient, but the principle remains the same.

There is much about biochar that remains a puzzle, however. Take the soil-fertility effects. What is it about biochar that improves soil so much? "The simple answer is that we don't know exactly," says Shackley. "It's probably a combination of several factors.

Charcoal is very porous, so it acts like a sponge in retaining water, and the nutrients dissolved in water, which is something poor soils aren't very good at. And [its porous nature] also means it provides a good material for the growth of lots of important bacteria."

Another factor in its favour is that using biochar as a fertiliser can displace artificial nitrogen fertilisers, which give off nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. And biochar is not toxic, adds Lenton - "no one has yet said there is some great hidden danger associated with it".

But Saran Sohi, a lecturer in soil science, warns that anyone hoping that biochar alone will solve fertility problems is probably deluded - biochar is not enough by itself to make the difference that terra preta does to thin Brazilian soils. "Terra preta soils also contain other nutrients, from the other substances they contain - things like bones, which are rich in phosphorus [essential for healthy plant growth]," he says. The biochar undoubtedly plays a role in holding these nutrients together, ensuring they remain available to plant roots, but the nutrients must be provided by other means. "No one has yet succeeded in recreating terra preta," Shackley adds.

To produce biochar on an industrial scale, traditional methods of charcoal production would be impractical. Instead, researchers are looking to pyrolysis - which is a form of controlled thermal decomposition of organic material in the absence of oxygen, at heats that can reach 500 to 600 degree C.

Using pyrolysis also allows the capture of the syngas and the tarry liquid byproducts, both of which can be used as fuel to generate electricity or for the heating process.

The amount of biochar to be produced depends on accelerating or slowing down the pyrolysis process: fast methods produce 20 per cent biochar and 20 per cent syngas, with 60 per cent bio-oil, while slow methods produce about 50 per cent char and far smaller quantities of oil. "It's much easier to do slow pyrolysis as well," notes Adrian Higson of the UK's National Non-Food Crops Council. "And cheaper." As modern pyrolysis plants can be run entirely from the syngas, the output is between three and nine times the energy input required, according to the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development.

What to use to make the char? Tearing down forests to turn into charcoal would be insane in climate change terms. But there is plenty of other material. Agriculture produces large amounts of plant and animal waste - straw, husks, dung. Even human waste - sewage sludge, or some forms of household rubbish - could be used.

And using waste products creates a double carbon saving: if left to rot, they produce methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. But the difficulty is in gathering the waste - and making it economic to do so. Farmers will require some persuasion that the trouble of conserving and cooking their waste to a charcoal makes financial sense, and they may need new machinery to do so. At a municipal waste level, the problem will be sorting the organic waste, which can be turned to char, from the rest of the rubbish - and proving that this is cheaper and more beneficial than merely burying it.

The IGSD suggests a way of marrying small-scale and industrial methods for producing the char, that if refined could enable the economically viable production of biochar in urban, rural and even poor regions. It suggests three possible systems. The first is a centralised scheme, whereby all waste biomass in a given region would be brought to a central plant for processing; the second is a decentralised system in which each farmer or a small group of farmers would have their own fairly low-tech pyrolysis kiln.

The third system proposes a mobile alternative, in which a vehicle equipped with a pyrolyser, powered using syngas, would visit small farms, returning the biochar to the farmers to use, while collecting the bio-oil to be transported to a refinery and turned into liquid biofuel for vehicles. As an example, the IGSD cites Brazil's sugar cane industry, in which the tops of the canes, normally burned in the field, and the bagasse - the residue from sugar production - could be turned efficiently into biochar. It estimates that of the 460 megatonne annual sugar cane harvest, as much as 230 megatonnes could be available for pyrolysis.

A clutch of companies is now working on these problems, and seeking to commercialise biochar as a medicine for both climate and soil, and as an energy source.

As Mike Mason, founder of the carbon offsetting company Climate Care, bought by JP Morgan, somewhat ruefully notes, he had been planning by now to spend most of his time charging round Africa looking at elephants (he was born in the UK, but was raised in east Africa). But instead he decided that climate change was too great a problem to leave alone, and with his new company, Biojoule, has been investigating ways to turn biochar into a viable business. In Ontario, Canada, Dynamotive is making biochar and up to 130 tonnes a day of bio-oil at a wood-products mill. Crucible Carbon, based in Australia, predicts that its technology will allow carbon sequestration from biochar at the cost of about A$20 (£9) a tonne.

Yet even without the logistical problems, others are less sure of the absolute benefits of the product. Robert Trezona, head of research and development at the Carbon Trust, a UK government-funded body that helps businesses cut their greenhouse gas emissions, worries that seeing biochar as the main output from cooking biomass might be to miss the point. The Carbon Trust is running a competition to develop pyrolysis plants, but with the aim of manufacturing liquid transport fuels from biomass, using fast pyrolysis techniques, to which biochar is merely a byproduct of questionable usefulness. "Producing liquid biofuels for transport is going to be very important in cutting emissions. We don't know the same about biochar," he says. In fact, encouraging small farmers to produce biochar by traditional, low-tech methods may actually result in more greenhouse gas emissions than simply burning the plants for fuel or discarding them, he says.

"This is very much unproven," he objects. "You want to be able to show that it stays in the soil for hundreds of years, and to prove that is difficult."

The Carbon Trust is not allowing companies applying to it for funding to count the biochar byproduct of pyrolysis as part of the carbon savings they produce. "We are a long way from having enough technical evidence to create a proper case for biochar," says Trezona. "Even the soil-improvement benefit is a new unexpected finding."

Flannery disagrees. "At least half of the carbon in charcoal is still sequestered 500 years later. This has been known for a long time, from radio carbon dating from charcoal by paleontologists," he says.

Even if biochar does not fulfil all of the potential claimed for it, it could still make an important contribution. Al Gore, the former US vice-president and environmental campaigner, likes to point out that the search for a "silver bullet" to solve the problem of climate change has been a distraction. Instead, he argues, though there may be no silver bullet, "there is silver buckshot". Only by bringing many different methods of cutting emissions or absorbing carbon to bear can we reduce atmospheric levels of carbon to within the limits of safety. And of those possible methods, few are as simple and cheap as biochar. Johannes Lehmann of Cornell makes the point that "biochar sequestration does not require a fundamental scientific advance and the underlying production technology is robust and simple, making it appropriate for many regions of the world".

But no one should doubt that rolling out this technology will be a mammoth task. The problem is twofold: developing a model for biochar production that reliably reduces greenhouse gases but is easily replicable in small farms in poor countries; and in the developed world, changing the business model of large farms so that collecting and cooking their waste is a better option than not. The huge US agribusinesses may be easy to reach, and good candidates to start using their waste for char, but they are likely to need financial incentives before they begin to see the point. The poor farmers of the developing world might be glad of the husbandry advice and techniques that would help them revitalise their own soils with biochar, but how to reach them all? That may prove impossible.

These problems of economics and communication will be the real hurdles at which biochar may fall, just as they have been the reasons why we have failed to capitalise on other ways of cutting carbon, from the very simple - small alterations to wood-fired cooking stoves in Africa and India can reduce the indoor air pollution from cooking fires that kills millions, yet hardly any homes have them - to the complex challenges, such as adopting renewable energy. A massive effort will be required to overcome the inertia that has been the downfall of other great climate ideas.

Fiona Harvey is the FT's environment correspondent.

Extinction is 6 degree C away

How long do we have left?

Scientists' best estimate is that beyond 2 degree C of warming, the earth will start to experience some disastrous and irreversible damage. Agriculture would be unsustainable in many already hot regions, sea level rises would render some areas uninhabitable, and extremes of weather would have severe consequences for life and property.

By 6 degree C or 7 degree C of warming, the extinction of most life on earth as we know it becomes probable. So policymakers have begun to focus on preventing more than 2 degree C of warming, as a broadly agreed limit. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2015-2020 to stay under 2 degree C .

How to get there?

The simple answer is to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but this turns out to be nearly impossible in practice. Keeping the world's existing forests, such as the Amazon and the rainforests of central Africa and Indonesia, alive would be the cheapest and most effective way of combating climate change, as the cutting down of trees in these areas is the biggest single contributor to global warming. Incredibly, the world has yet to come up with a way of giving poor countries with rainforests an incentive to prevent deforestation.

Is there anything else we can do?

Yes, there are a few possible quick fixes, and some of them are even achievable. Remember the ozone layer? The issue, entirely separate from climate change, concerned the destruction of a protective layer of gases in the atmosphere by certain chemicals.

Governments swiftly negotiated the Montreal protocol to phase out these ozone-depleting chemicals. The treaty's final phase will have more than five times the effect on the climate of the Kyoto protocol, because some chemicals involved have a large global warming effect.

Another quick fix is to tackle soot, or black carbon - soot is the product of inefficiently combusted carbon, and its black colour means it attracts the sun's heat. So when "black carbon" falls on snow or other light areas, it detracts from the earth's albedo - a measure of how much light is reflected back into space - and contributes to warming. More efficient combustion would mean less soot.

Other quick wins include applying white paint to the roofs of houses and cars in hot areas, to reflect more heat, and painting roofs black where it is cold, to reduce the need for heating. Some "geo-engineering" ideas are much more drastic, or untested, including sending out yachts to spray seawater into the atmosphere to form clouds, which would reflect heat because they are white, or filling the stratosphere with sulphur particles, which would also reflect heat, but might cause acid rain.

Is that it?

Policymakers meet in Copenhagen this December to hammer out a climate treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol - its current provisions expire in 2012. Without a successor there will be no binding obligation on countries to cut emissions or tackle climate change.

Fiona Harvey

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

 

"Commodity prices forecast to surge again this year after a brief hiatus" in Finantial Times - 2 March

"Food commodity prices this year will remain above historical levels, hitting poor countries for the third year in a row, according to the US department of agriculture.

The forecast at the USDA's annual conference in Washington points to lower prices than in the first half of last year, when the cost of commodities such as corn, wheat, soyabean and rice hit all-time highs.

Joseph Glauber, USDA chief economist, said the impact of the economic crisis on food consumption would depress agriculture commodity prices temporarily, but he warned that prices would remain well above average for the eight years since 2000.

Mr Glauber told the Financial Times that the outlook was "for a return to higher prices" as some of the pressures that drove last year's increases and relatively strong growth in emerging markets "will return to play a major role" this year or in early 2010. "This is going to be again a tough year [for poor countries]," he said.

The USDA forecasts US farm-gate wheat prices at below the 2008 record level, but above the 2006-07 average, when prices started to climb, triggering a global food crisis.

The prospect of higher prices was a concern for developing countries just as the economic crisis hit their prospects, the conference heard. Traders warned some African countries were facing difficulties securing imports of food commodities amid tight credit.

Christopher Delgado, a policy adviser in agriculture at the World Bank, warned the conference that in spite of a drop in food prices, corn prices were at least 40 per cent above the 2003-06 average, and rice prices 100 per cent higher. "The food crisis has not gone away," he said. "In fact, it is coming back."

The number of hungry people in the world last year jumped to almost 1bn because the impact of the global food crisis.

The long-term impact of the food crisis is to push countries towards more protectionist food policies.

A key concern continued to be the export bans that some big sellers of agriculture commodities have imposed in the past 18 months. Vietnam, the world's second biggest exporter of rice, announced last week a four-month ban on overseas rice sales. In Argentina, speculation has mounted that the government could set up a grains and oilseeds trading board to grant it greater control over a key revenue-earning sector of the economy.

Wayne Jones, head of agri-food markets at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, said developing countries were moving from "imports to outsourcing" production on agricultural land overseas, and from "private to public market interventions".

"For countries that are low-income, food-importing countries, this [shift towards higher agriculture prices] is scary," he said."

 

IS CROSS COMPLIANCE AN EFFECTIVE POLICY?

Today in the European Parliament, in COCOBU Commission, took place the appreciation of the working document "European Court of Auditors Special Report 8/2008, Is the Cross Compliance an effective policy?"

In special report No. 8/2008 the European Court au Auditors sets out the conclusions of its audit seeking to determine

- if "cross compliance" is effective, in particular, if its objectives are clearly defined,

- if cross compliance and rural development are adapted to one another, and

- if the control and sanction system as well as reporting and monitoring, are adequate.

The audit was carried out at the Commission and in seven Member States: Finland, Greece, Netherlands, France, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia.

In its audit the Court has found that the objectives and the scope of cross compliance are not well defined, and that the implementation of cross compliance in the Member States poses considerable difficulties. The Court believes that cross compliance and rural development are not well adapted to one another, that Member States have not taken sufficient responsibility to implement effective control and sanction systems, and that monitoring data provided by the Member States to the Commission is not sufficiently reliable. Overall the Court concludes that cross compliance as currently managed by the Commission and implemented by the Member States is not effective.

While the Commission acknowledges a number of the findings of the Court and recognises a number of shortcomings, it comments on the Courts findings on a number of issues where its conclusions do not match those of the Court.

On the basis of the Court's findings and recommendations and the Commission's replies, the rapporteur has drafted eight conclusions for inclusion in the 2007 Commission discharge report (pages 5 and 6 of the working document and paragraphs 170-176 of Mr. Audy's discharge report on the Commission).

In his working document Mr. Wojciechowski agrees with the Court that the cross compliance framework should be simplified and that an effective control and sanction system and a sound monitoring system should be implemented. The rapporteur also invites the Commission to draw a clear delineation between cross compliance and agri-environment, and to present proposals in the context of the budget review and the next reform of the CAP.

 

MID-TERM REVIEW OF THE 2007-2013 FINANCIAL FRAMEWORK

 

On 22th January of 2009 in the European Parliament, there was an exchange of views about the Mid-Term Review of the 2007-2013 Financial Framework Report in the Budgets Committee, here you have a short summary:

 

At its meeting of 6 March 2008, the Conference of Presidents decided to authorise the Committee on Budgets to draft an initiative report on the mid-term review of the 2007-2013 financial framework. Six committees have indicated the will to deliver an opinion (AFET, DEVE, CONT, ITRE, REGI and AGRI). In September 2007, the rapporteur presented a first working document. In view of the INI report, the rapporteur is now presenting a second working document with updated considerations on the midterm review exercise in the current political and institutional context and possible options. On 3 November 2008, the Commission hosted a Conference "Reforming the Budget, Changing Europe" (http://ec.europa.eu/budget/reform/conference/documents_en.htm), which was opened by President Barroso, President Pöttering and Commissioner Grybauskaite, with more than 600 registered participants. Moreover, a number of MEP participated in round tables, among whom the chairman of the Committee on Budgets and the standing rapporteur on own resources. The conference marked the first phase of the review process as foreseen by the Commission. The Commission had launched the consultation in September 2007. In total, 305 contributors submitted 284 different contributions.

 

Calendar:

21-22 January Working document N 2

10-11 February Draft report

16 February Deadline for amendments

23-24 February Vote in COBU

2 March Vote in Plenary

 

PESTICIDES DEBATE

After 9th December meeting "Exchange of views on Pesticides: what´s the most sustainable solution?" pelase finsd additional information concerning the voting results from the last Plenery Session, held in Strasbourg on 13th January:

"The European Parliament today approved new EU pesticides legislation which will increase the number of pesticides available in Member States, while in due course banning the use of certain dangerous chemicals in these products. Measures to ensure the safer use of pesticides in daily life will also be introduced.

Toxic chemicals will be banned but producers can sell more easily across borders
 
The key points of the regulation, which deals with the production and licensing of pesticides, are as follows.

• A positive list of approved "active substances" (the chemical ingredients of pesticides) is to be drawn up at EU level.  Pesticides will then be licensed at national level on the basis of this list. 
• Certain highly toxic chemicals will be banned unless exposure to them would in practice be negligible, namely those which are carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction, those which are endocrine-disrupting, and those which are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) or very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB). 
• For developmental neurotoxic and immunotoxic substances, higher safety standards may be imposed.
• If a substance is needed to combat a serious danger to plant health, it may be approved for up to five years even if it does not meet the above safety criteria.  
• Products containing certain hazardous substances are to be replaced if safer alternatives are shown to exist. MEPs successfully demanded a shorter deadline for their replacement, of three years rather than five.
• Substances likely to be harmful to honeybees will be outlawed.
   

Reducing pesticide use and managing it better
 
The main points of the directive on the sustainable use of pesticides are as follows.

 

CAP: A POLICY OF THE PAST?

Budget Commissioner Grybauskaite yesterday presenting the results of a public consultation on the future of the EU's budget said that the consultation, which drew contributions from more than 300 organisations and individuals, showed a broad consensus for focusing the EU's budget on the “policies of tomorrow” and less on “policies of the past” like the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

According to the commissioner, the priority policy areas were competitiveness, research, innovation; the environment and climate change; and energy, including interconnection and developing renewable energy sources.

 

CAP HEALTH CHECK END GAME

from www.CAPhealthcheck.eu

As we head into the end-game of the health check, Roger Waite, editor of Agra Facts, analyses the big five outstanding issues:

1. Dairy quotas - how to ensure a smooth transition to a free market in milk within the EU.
2. Article 68 - targeted policies or recoupling via the backdoor?
3. Modulation - how to move money from old-style farm subsidies, especially to Europe’s largest farms, to fund rural development and farmland conservation.
4. Co-financing - will the health check require hard-pressed member state treasuries to find more nationally-funded spending for the CAP?
5. The future of common market organisations - an end to intervention?

Roger also gives his views on the likely successor to Mariann Fischer Boel, whom he expects to stand down as Agriculture Commissioner in 2009.  

 CAP health check podcast [36:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

3-4 November 2008

More CAP or less?

 

MEPs and MPs debate CAP's future and world food security role

The world food price crisis and the climate change debate have put the EU's common agricultural policy (CAP) back in the news spotlight. MEPs and MPs in Brussels on 3 and 4 November for an inter-parliamentary meeting on the future of European agriculture and its global role began reflecting on the CAP's future shape in the context of food and energy challenges. Since its inception LUFPIG has argued that whilst fulfilling its original role of stimulating food production in times of shortage, the CAP has not necessarily always been the best model for the food chain as a whole. Exporting the CAP to other areas of the world in an attempt to deal with the needs of the 21st century warrants careful consideration.

 
Conference report:

Introducing the first day's debate on the CAP's health check and prospects after 2013, EP Agriculture Committee Chairman Neil Parish (EPP-ED, UK) regretted that the European Commission's proposal "does not consider how the CAP should tackle the global food crisis and increased energy demand. It doesn't say a word either on how the CAP should look after 2013".
 
"It takes time to turn a supertanker around", replied Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, justifying her approach of first refining the 2003 reform. After 2013, we shall have to "leave more room for the market to work", retaining safety nets only for genuine crises,  and justifying agricultural spending to citizens by developing rural development policy and taking more account of the environment", she said.
   

No return to pre-92 CAP
 
In the debate, most speakers called, albeit with certain qualifications, for markets to be regulated and a strong agricultural policy sustained, without however returning to pre-1992 CAP management systems. The need to simplify the rules and provide more predictability for farmers were also recurrent themes. Many speakers also voiced concerns about the future of the dairy sector, given that quotas are to be eliminated in 2014, particularly in regions where producers find it hard to compete, because milk is difficult to produce (e.g. in mountainous areas).
 
Concluding this discussion, French Senator Jean Bizet considered that there was a "consensus" on the need for a "sufficiently ambitious common agricultural policy", meeting society's expectations, fitting into the world food order and more responsive to climate change. MEP Lutz Goepel (EPP-ED, DE) was more circumspect, stressing the difficulty of summarizing the variety of positions stated and regretting the absence of debate on how the CAP would be funded after 2013.
 
Expanding agriculture, a worldwide priority
 
"Yesterday, we turned the page of the old CAP", and notably export subsidies. "Today, we must prepare a reformed CAP", said chairman of the French National Assembly's Economic Affairs Committee Patrick Ollier, opening the second day's debate, which was devoted to the role of European agriculture in world food security. "Whilst markets remain the keystone, they must also be subject to regulatory requirements", he said, adding that "more of the CAP, not less, is needed worldwide".
 
"We must learn the lessons of the financial crisis and act together with the rest of the world to meet the food challenge", said EU Agriculture Council President and French agriculture minister Michel Barnier. Mr Barnier advocated creating a worldwide partnership for food and agriculture. This would include officials from the FAO, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO, involve setting up a technical group like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and require an "international financial mobilisation in keeping with what is at stake to expand agriculture in the developing countries".
 
One billion people face famine
 
"Today we face a situation in which 923 million people suffer from hunger - a figure that could rise by another 100 million in a year if we do nothing", stressed FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. Since prices soared in 2007, developed countries have upped their cereal production by 11%, whilst developing countries have managed only a 0.9% increase, due to lack of funds for fertiliser and seeds, he noted. "We need 30 billion dollars a year to invest in agriculture in the developing countries. OECD subsidies amount to 372 billion, and we managed to mobilise 4,000 billion to deal with the financial crisis. In what kind of a world do we live? asked Mr Diouf.
 
The FAO representative was backed inter alia by Christopher Delgado, of the World Bank, who stressed that no country in the world had developed without first developing its agriculture and advocated building up sufficient food stocks (without returning to the surpluses of past decades) to reduce price volatility.
 
Redefine development aid policies
 
In the debate, the majority of MPs and MEPs observed that development aid policies should be refocused on agriculture, that farmers worldwide need decent incomes to enable them to continue producing enough, and that international trade negotiations need to produce a more balanced agreement for developing countries. Several speakers advocated an "agricultural waiver" at the WTO, whilst others stressed the importance of backing new technology research to boost productivity. Biofuels of agricultural origin, and particularly second-generation ones, must not be made scapegoats for the crisis, event though absolute priority must go to food production, said participants.
 
Pre-eminent role for Europe
 
"Agriculture will be at the heart of tomorrow's food challenges, because by the end of this century we shall have to feed no fewer than 9 billion people from the same land area, concluded French Senate Economic Affairs Committee chairman Jean-Paul Emorine. In meeting this challenge, "Europe will play a pre-eminent part, in production, regulation and co-operation with developing countries", he said.
 
"The CAP's future is in food quality and safety, safe production, protecting the diversity of landscapes and better use of water resources" said Neil Parish. "Regulation must not be too strict, as this destroys markets, and agricultural policy must be fairer to developing countries, so as not to destabilise their markets", he said.


03/11/2008 "The future of European Agriculture and its Role in the World" - meeting of EP committees and national parliaments, Brussels, 3-4 November 2008
 
Co-chairs: Neil Parish (European Parliament), Patrick Ollier (French National Assembly) et Jean-Paul Emorine (French Senate)

21 October 2008

LUFPIG members may find the following of interest: article on biofuels in the Financial Times

FT.com / Comment / Analysis - Biofuels: From hope to husk

7 October 2008

LUFPIG Roundtable discussion on Balancing Power in the EU Food Supply Chain

Following Parliament's 19 February 2008 adoption of a Written Declaration on investigating and remedying the abuse of power by large supermarkets operating in the European Union, LUFPIG decided to organise an event which could bring together farmers, retailers, policymakers and other stakeholders to discuss this concern. Namely, what is the current state of affairs in the EU food supply chain and might there be better ways of managing this system?
 
The impact that this system seems to be having throughout on small businesses, food suppliers, workers and consumers should not be underestimated. And certainly, high food prices make this an even bigger concern.

From the Commission we were joined by two of the officials from DG Economic and Financial Affairs who are leading the investigation on the functioning of the food supply chain further to Parliament's Written Declaration: Gert-Jan Koopman, Director, Structural reforms and Lisbon strategy and Fabienne Ilzkovitz, Head of Unit, Product markets.

We were also joined on the panel by Graham Furey, President of the Ulster Farmers Union Xavier Durieu and Ricard Cabedo Sema from EuroCommerce and Mercadona, respectively.

 

26 August 2008

LUFPIG Sponsors Dinner

The dinner provided a chance for LUFPIG's Members and Sponsors to gather around the table and formally hand over the Chairmanship from Thijs Berman to Paulo Casaca, discuss the upcoming programme of meetings for the end of 2008 and the first half of 2009 and confirm the intergroup's priorities.

1 July 2008

LUFPIG debate on GMO's

Following the rejection of certain EFSA approved GMOs by a French Scientific Committee which questioned their validity, LUFPIG held a meeting to debate "Who's got it right?" We were joined by Mr Frederic Jacquemart, a scientist on La Commission du Genie Bio-moleculaire (CGB), Dr. Riitta Maijala, who is the Director for Risk Assessment from EFSA and Dr Per Bergman, the Head of EFSA's GMO Unit. From industry, we were joined by Mrs Nathalie Moll, who is the Executive Director of the Green Biotech Europe department at EuropaBio.

 

26 June 2008

BirdLife International Briefing on environmental compliance

This brainstorming was held in order to carry forth the initial brainstorming debate which took place on Greening the CAP on 12 February of this year. Since then, LUFPIG and Quentin Huxham from GLOBE drafted an Options Paper to try to offer a few concrete steps for taking forward some of the ideas which were expressed back in February. The paper addresses Pillar 1 vs Pillar 2 issues, the food vs fuel debate, growing concerns about the feasibility of CAP expenditure in the context of the upcoming budgetary review. The discussion was also helped by Gareth Morgan from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the UK partner of BirdLife International, who had given a presentation on a study conducted by BirdLIfe International on CAP payments and adherence to environmental standards.

 

15 May 2008

Meeting with French Agriculture and Fisheries Minister, Michel Barnier

In a small off the record meeting, Minister Barnier spoke to LUFPIG MEPs about both his personal and professional understanding of the global food crisis, CAP reform, international trade and development. It was an informative and open discussion and helped to generate some thought here in the EP about the future of Europe's agriculture and food policy.

7 May 2008

Meeting on Transparency of farm subsidies with Jack Thurston

Jack Thurston gave a presentation about the continued work of farmsubsidy.org to bring transparency to EU farm payments. Additionally, he introduced to the group of participants a a new project to map EU farm subsidy payments whereby the map shows all EU farm subsidy payments in Sweden between 2000 and 2007, around 7 billion euros in 2 million individual payments. 
 
Jack explained how Sweden was chosen as the first country for a map like this because of the high quality of the data released by the Swedish Government. Sweden currently tops the farmsubsidy.org transparency league table, with a score of 81% and hopes that other Member States follow the trend.

 

17 April

On 17 April, Neil Parish spoke during a LUFPIG lunch debate on dairy sector reform and how it factors in to the wider debate on the CAP Health Check. Participants were interested in whether some CAP spending money could, within the Health Check, be moved to rural development activities, particularly in the field of conservation. It was suggested that this would help to somewhat off-set some of the environmental losses which are expected to occur with the abolition of set aside land under the new regime.  

Participants agreed that some changes will need to be made to the historical allocation of CAP benefits, because the further we move away from the era in which these calculations were made, the more difficult it is to rationalise them. Discussions touched on potential progress being made in the Doha Round and what was the likely position that agriculture would have following its completion. Speaking on the complications associated with creating a "common" agricultural policy for such a diverse grouping of regions and countries, participants looked forward to future LUFPIG events which might provide additional opportunities to discuss the politics of negotiations in this sector.

9 April

Restocking the empty global larder

Published: April 9 2008 19:34 | Last updated: April 9 2008 19:34

Advice for those trying to solve the global food crisis: do not start from here. As governments across the developing world impose export bans on staple foods, further worsening the shortages on inter­national markets, the shortcomings of a system designed around the expectation of plenty are becoming painfully evident.

The causes are quite simple: principally higher demand from a richer world eating more protein and requiring more feedstock, and restricted supply because of variable weather and crops being diverted into biofuels.

There are, sadly, few quick fixes, not least because food production responds only slowly to changes in price, although restricting global supply via export bans is certainly not a sensible solution.

One, which might have a faster impact than at first appears, would be to take some of the artificial hot air out of the biofuels bubble.

The biofuels boom is in fact an excellent example of the dangers of ignoring markets and kowtowing to producer interests such as the corn farmers and the ethanol distillers of the American Midwest. A sensible motive to reduce carbon emissions and achieve energy security has turned into a shambles of a policy that does neither but causes hunger and misery elsewhere.

The US and European Union should announce reviews, if not suspensions, of the EU target for biofuel use and the US ethanol subsidy and import tariff. That may not have an immediate impact on production. But it should help take some of the speculative froth out of the commodities market, which has been betting on a subsidised surge in demand for biofuel crops continuing well into the future.

In the medium term, the imperative must be on increasing supply, for which much of the responsibility lies with developing countries – improving infrastructure, including storage where necessary for buffer stocks, bringing more land into production and encouraging crop insurance or forward markets where they do not exist. Those countries resisting the introduction of genetically modified food should take another look at the productivity gains that it can unleash.

Security and stability of food supply are enhanced when markets are allowed to work by being given clear and enduring price signals, with governments providing social and physical infrastructure support. A clear and consistent policy of cheap food has been sadly absent from the world debate about support to agriculture over the past few years. It should not have taken a crisis to create one.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

 

19 March

Transparency: All recipients of EU farm aid to be published by April 2009

All recipients of European Union agricultural and rural development payments will be published in detail under new rules adopted today by the European Commission. By 30 April, 2009, the full name, municipality and, where available, postal code of every recipient will be published in a clear, harmonised manner on nationally-managed websites with a search tool which enables the public to see how much money each person or company received. Amounts will be broken down in direct payments to farmers and other support measures. For rural development policy, which is co-financed between the EU and the national government, the information will cover both EU and national money. This information will be available by 30 April every year for the previous financial year and must remain on the website for two years from the date of its original publication. In addition, the European Commission will manage its own website which will have links to each national site.

"This is taxpayers' money, so it is very important that people know where it is being spent," said Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development. "Transparency should also improve the management of these funds, by reinforcing public control of how the money is used. Only in this way can we guarantee an informed debate about the future of the Common Agricultural Policy. This level of transparency is something both we and the European Parliament have been pushing for and we're glad we now have agreement on how the system will work."

For more information:
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/kallas/transparency_en.htm  

12 March

A Statement from LUFPIG Chair, Thijs Berman on the Parliamentary approval of Lutz Goepel's Report on the CAP "Health Check":

The European Parliament has now approved Lutz Goepel's Report on the CAP "Health Check". Unfortunately, both in my capacity as Chairman of LUFPIG and in my role on the Budgets Committee, I see this as very disappointing. The content of the Report and those amendments which were made to it is the most conservative agricultural policy which I have seen come out of this house since joining. Farmers, consumers and policy makers from all Member States, regions, political groups and demographics have been coming to Europe with the complaint that the CAP is not working. And yet, this Report shows us no significant changes in how things are currently managed. It simply does not make sense, in a world of of so many significant changes since 1957, that the EU should continue to manage the resources allotted to its agriculture industry with the same objectives as those originally expressed in the Treaty of Rome. What we needed was radical change and not regression. I sincerely hope that the Commission's legislative proposals, due to come out next month, do not fail to push for change. What we needed was a plan for the future which would ensure that Europe's farmers are able to make a good living producing nutritious, environmentally sustainable, high quality food which is sold at fair prices to consumers. It is disappointing that instead of this plan for the future, we seem to be so firmly stuck in the past.

3 March 2008

On 3 March, LUFPIG hosted a briefing on the UK agriculture industry's response to climate change with the National Farmers' Union (NFU) specialist, Dr. Jonathan Scurlock. Timed with the NFU's release of its publication "Part of the Solution", Dr Scurlock briefed participants on the wide range of land-based industries capable of supplying the market with renewable energy. Although it was acknowledged that there is not yet much of a financial incentive for carbon mangement in the farming sector, we are moving in that direction.

12 February 2008

On 12 February, LUFPIG held a breakfast briefing with Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Fischer Boel. Discussions touched on a variety of issues, including Single Farm Payments, biofuels, GMOs, WTO negotiations and climate change. The Commissioner, who has met with LUFPIG in the past, was receptive to those views expressed by Members and industry representatives. LUFPIG hopes to meet with the Commissioner again once the legislative proposals on the CAP Health Check have been released

Also on the 12, LUFPIG held its first brainstorming meeting on its Greening of the CAP project. Representing the Commission, John Bensted-Smith from DG AGRI and Michael Hammel from DG ENVI attended in order to brief participants on the current state of play and those changes that were likely to come out of the CAP which might make it more sustainable. This brainstorming session will be followed up soon.

21 January 2008

On 21 January, Robert Madelin, Director General of DG SANCO, met with LUFPIG Members and Sponsors to discuss the connection of agricultural issues to those of health and consumer protection.

The meeting touched on the question about whether our food/agricultural policy is defined the right way around - ie should we not define what we should be eating then encourage the farmers to grow it and the supermarkets to sell it? In this way, some participants suggested that perhaps it would be more effective to think of a common food policy, rather than a common agricultural policy. Just days before the Commission's new proposal on Informational Food Labelling for consumers, participants were also very interested to hear Mr Madelin's thoughts on this issue.

DG SANCO's recently published document on "Future Challenges paper: 2009-2014"   was cited as an interesting look into whether or not consumers interest in local and ethically produced products in likely to grow.

It was the first time that LUFPIG has met with Mr Madelin and further to the meeting, both parties agreed to continue liaising on those issues which were raised during the lunch meeting.

 

2007 meetings

20 November 2007

On 20 November, the Commission released its Communication on the CAP Health Check. Launched, as it were, by Commissioner Fischer Boel's appearance in this morning's AGRI meeting, please find below the link to the press release and FAQs concerning the upcoming review of the CAP.

Press release: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/1720&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Relevant questions and their short answers: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/07/476&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

As part of the consultation on the Health Check, on 6 December, the Commission is holding a stakeholder conference, to which the following MEPs have been invited and will attend: Neil Parish, Lutz Goeppel, Neils Busk, Mr Capulos Santos and Graefe Zu Baringdorf.

12th April 2007

On March 29th the European Commission proposed a set of measures to improve and simplify the system of Cross Compliance, which formed a key element of the 2003 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. The changes aim, among other things, to improve information, introduce a certain level of tolerance in minor cases of non-compliance, harmonise control rates and introduce advance notice of certain on-farm checks. This proposal does not water down the concept of Cross Compliance, but takes into account experience gained so far to make the system work better for the benefit of farmers and administrations. It forms the latest stage in the Commission's ongoing efforts to simplify the CAP.

The Commission has already issued seven guidance documents since 2005 to help the Member States and has encouraged sharing of best practice. It will continue to encourage such discussions in the future. On April 12th the Commission presented the report on cross compliance [COM(2007)147]. A number of specific practical measures have been proposed to simplify the operation of the system, such as:

• Member States should be allowed not to pursue cases of non-compliance which would not trigger the minimum reduction. However, a warning letter should still be sent to the farmer concerned and follow-up ensured.

• It is also proposed to establish a de minimis rule to exempt from reductions any penalty falling below €50. A warning letter would be sent and follow-up ensured also in this case.

• The Commission intends to introduce a single control rate, of 1 percent minimum, for on-the-spot checks for Cross Compliance.

• In cases where checks have revealed a significant degree of non-compliance, checks are increased. In future, this increase should focus only on the areas of risk and not on all standards, as is currently the case.

• The Commission will create the possibility to give notice of checks up to 14 days in advance as long as the purpose of the controls is not jeopardised. Controls on feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare and identification and registration of animals will remain unannounced.

• National authorities will be required to identify the optimal time of year to check most of the obligations, while ensuring that no obligation is ignored in the control system.

• Checks need only be made on half of the land parcels, rather than the whole farm.

• Farmers must receive the control report at the latest three months after the checks.

• There will be an improved selection of the control sample, including a random element.

• The Commission will clarify the information the Member States are required to provide to farmers.

• It is proposed to simplify the so-called "10-month rule", which obliges farmers to keep at their disposal for 10 months any land parcels declared to activate the single payment scheme.

• New Member States which apply the SAPS scheme of direct aid will have to implement the SMRs from 2009. It is proposed to allow a three-year phasing-in period for this. For Bulgaria and Romania, this phase-in period would begin in 2012.

 

21 March 2007

Today AGRI Committee in the European Parliament organised Hearing on the Reform of the Common Organisation of the Market in Fruit and Vegetables.

European agricultural experts and representatives of producers who participated in the hearing to analyze the proposals on the reform of the CMO in fruit and vegetables in general supported the rapporteur's María Salinas García theses included in the report, describing the proposal from the Commission as a solid basis for starting work                     [COM(2007)0017].

One of the main concerns of the participants was the insufficient rate of the Community financial assistance, which according to the Commission paper shall be capped at 4,1% of the value of the marketed production of each producer organisation. Salinas proposes in her report to increase funding to 6% since, according to the Commission proposal Producer Organisations (PO) are being obliged to do more with the same money. In this respect, the rapporteur also suggests extending to other scenarios the increase to 60% of the reserved bonus for specific cases.

Salinas emphasised that it is impossible to maintain the aids of 4.1% of the commercialized production and simultaneously apply bonus of 60%, however it is a false approach which can be an obstacle for a great number of organisations, for that reason it is necessary to raise it to 6%, besides there are money for it. There were however voices, that 6% is not achievable, and it is better to focus on a more realistic target, like 5%.

On the other hand, other participants demanded a greater protection of the sector from products imported from third countries, like reciprocity and other instruments, for example price monitoring by competent authorities.

As far as proposal to decouple aid for processed products is concerned we could hear various opinions, however most of the experts supported the rapporteur's view considering it too drastic, as it would not allow the sector to adapt to the new CAP philosophy.

With regards to the specific problem of the red fruits, the hearing revealed different approaches based on the national interests. Some speakers pointed out that it is not necessary incompatible to decouple aid concessions by hectare as it has been done in the sector of dried fruits.

There were also complaints from new Member States (Poland) about unjust distribution of funds between new and old Members.

After listening to the interventions of the different experts, Salinas emphasized in her conclusions that there are more things that unite than that separate them. The rapporteur was happy to hear support for some of her proposals like those of maintenance and reinforcement of the POs, or the promotion of the concentration of the supply as the main element for the competitiveness of the sector. 

 

6 March 2007

LUFPIG has held a number of events and workshops on the various issues involving bio-fuels over the last 12 months.  Today, in the European Parliament took place one of them - LUFPIG & GLOBE-EU Conference "Bio-fuels - The next Generation Sustainable Fuels?", summarizing the achievements as so far and responding to the Commission's strategy.

High oil prices, fear of future oil shortage, security issues, global climate change, and income possibilities in rural areas are the major reasons for the increasing dynamics of biofuels supplementing or replacing fossil fuels. Alternatives like bioethanol, biodiesel and ultimately 2nd generation biofuels are of increasing importance.

The future impacts and calls for action in politics and industry were discussed at the conference in order to promote further policy dialogues and recommendations. The biofuels issue were considered from various angles, including the petroleum industry, agriculture, environment and development policies.

On behalf of the Commission in the debate participated Ms Rosário Bento Pais, Member of the Cabinet of the Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel. In response the floor has been taken by various politicians, interest groups and representatives of industry.

Both LUFPIG and GLOBE Intergroups would like to see a more coherent and ambitious bio-fuels strategy and we hope this conference will help shape the debate further as the Parliament both formally and informally discusses the Commission's latest Bio-fuels Communication. 

Programme and meeting documents can be found in the section 'events'

 

2 March 2007

Thijs Berman has been invited to attend the conference "Food, Fuel or Forest? - opportunities, threats and knowledge gaps of feedstock production for bio-energy" organised by Wageningen University and Research Centre (speech).

The seminar was supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and two major global industries Unilever and Shell. Its aim was to review the most recent scientific insights in potential global feedstock production for large scale biofuel production, the claims on natural resources and the competition between food and fuel, as well as to identify gaps of knowledge in regarding sustainable production of feedstock.

 

28 February 2007

Thijs Berman has joined the CAP Health Check blog as one of the authors. This blog is a perfect place for people interested in the future of Europe's farming, food and rural development policies to come for news, views and analysis relating to the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy and specifically the ‘health check’ (or policy review) scheduled for 2008.

The blog brings together the work of researchers, activists and analysts from across Europe and elsewhere.

 

27 January 2007

On January 26th Chairman of the Land Use and Food Policy Intergroup Thijs Berman participated in a Conference "Transparency in farm subsidies and beyond" in Budapest, Hungary, organised by Farmsubsidy.org. Thijs Berman focused on future developments in European Union transparency (speech ).

The conference brought together current participants in the Farmsubsidy.org network and those involved in promoting greater transparency in European Union policies, both in agriculture and other areas.

The aim of the conference was to exchange methods, plans and ideas. The conference took the form of workshop sessions in which network members and invited guests made presentations followed by open discussions. The overall format of the conference was informal and there were many opportunities besides the timetabled sessions to work ‘in the margins’.