Farm-to-fork strategy: overcome environmental challenges, create economic opportunities

The farm-to-fork strategy, the principle of which has been today jointly approved by the parliamentary Committees on Agriculture (AGRI) and on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), aims to move towards more sustainable and healthier food production and to empower European farmers to play a central role in achieving environmental goals. Renew Europe endorses this strategy. Regarding the realization of future legislation to give substance to this strategy, Renew Europe is committed to make sure that this transition towards more sustainable agriculture will be economically viable for all farmers in the EU and will create new economic opportunities in light of the need to take up of new practices and technologies. We support the further development of initiatives to improve sustainability along the entire food chain – from reducing harmful inputs and increasing biodiversity and climate protection in farming, working with food processing and retail to offer healthier food with a better environmental footprint, towards making food information more transparent to allow consumers to make more informed choices.

Ulrike MÜLLER (Freie Wähler, Germany), Renew Europe shadow rapporteur for the farm-to-plate strategy in AGRI, said : “Farmers in Europe are facing a more and more demanding, complex and often incoherent environmental and climate policy. They want to play their part in making farming more sustainable. In order to do so, they need a coherent and predictable framework that enables them to tackle the challenges and to make sustainable farming a viable business model on a large scale. The Farm to Fork Strategy brings together the many different initiatives and links farming and food production to the Green Deal. Renew Europe will work hard to ensure that farmers, consumers and the environment will benefit from the Strategy.”

Asger CHRISTENSEN (Venstre, Denmark), Renew Europe shadow rapporteur for the farm-to-plate strategy in ENVI, added : “The Farm to Fork Strategy lays out a long-term roadmap for achieving our climate goals. It forms the basis of future sustainable farming through the development of the circular economy. Not least through implementation of both existing and new green technology, which is going to play a significant role in the green transition.
Development of the agricultural sector is central to ensure healthy and sustainable food for Europeans.”