Vote on European Parliament’s Farm to Fork Strategy report: mostly positive on organic
The Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy, published in May 2020 with a view of holistically transitioning towards more sustainable food systems, immediately gathered much attention from policymakers and stakeholders. Among these, the European Parliament (EP) embarked in working on their own initiative report led by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) Anja Hazekamp (the Left Group – ENVI committee) and Herbert Dorfmann (European People’s Party – AGRI committee).
Tremendous interest in Farm to Fork Strategy report
As a testament to the interest for this own initiative report, suffice to know that MEPs tabled more than 2,200 amendments. This means that MEPs suggested more than 2,200 modifications to the F2F strategy, to put forward the position of the European Parliament on this strategy.
As it is difficult to vote on 2,200 amendments, they were condensed in so called “compromise amendments” – 48 of them – as well as in some self-standing amendments, that were voted on by the Parliament’s Committees on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) and Environment (ENVI) committees on 9 and 10 September.
Civil society wants an ambitious report
In the weeks and months leading up to the vote, IFOAM Organics Europe together with other NGOs put together an advocacy and communication strategy to call for an ambitious European Parliament F2F strategy report. NGO’s priorities are summarized by the Food Policy Coalition.
What lies ahead & position on organic
While the final F2F Strategy report will be adopted in the plenary of the EP in October, we can already report on the outcome of the vote and therefore on the content of this report. MEPs “welcome the ambitions and goals of the farm to fork strategy as an important step in ensuring a sustainable, fair, healthy, animal friendly, more regional, diversified and resilient food system, which is central to achieving the goals set out in the European Green Deal and in the SDGs”.
On organic, MEPs welcome the Commission’s recognition of organic farming as a crucial component in transitioning towards more sustainable food systems, as well as the ambition to reach 25% EU organic land by 2030. MEPs also stress the importance of the organic action plan for developing organic. However, while organic is presented in the context of sustainable public procurement (SPP) both in the F2F Strategy and in initial amendments to the EP F2F Strategy report, reference to organic in the context of SPP was taken out from the final EP report on the F2F Strategy.
For more information on the Farm to Fork Strategy and IFOAM Organics Europe’s work on this issue, please contact [email protected]. IFOAM Organics Europe members can find more information on the member extranet.
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