The EU does a welcome u-turn on farming19 January 2001
The EU Agriculture Commissioner, Franz Fischler's said at Berlin's traditional Green Week agricultural fair, that Europe should "encourage and promote environmentally-friendly production methods which respect animal welfare".
Fischler's comments are similar to the views reported in recent weeks from the German Government, in the wake of the first confirmed cases of BSE.
"Franz Fischler's statement is a breath of fresh air which hopefully represents a wind of change blowing through the EU's thinking on agriculture," said. Pete Riley, Friends of the Earth Real Food Campaigner. "For too long environmentally friendly farming has been treated as a fringe activity. Huge sums of public money have been used to support intensive systems of production that are bad for people, bad for animals and bad for the environment. The BSE crisis shows how seriously things have gone wrong.
"Agriculture Minister Nick Brown must act before the next round of EC reforms, due in 2004,to prevent a further crisis in UK farming. MAFF should use the powers it gained under the last EC reforms to ensure money traditionally spent propping up unsustainable, intensive farming is used to support more eco-friendly systems instead."
FOE is also calling on the Government to give its backing to the Organic Targets Bill which would develop an action plan for organic farming and set a target of 30 per cent of land in England and Wales to be organic by 2010. The Bill has been adopted as a Private Members Bill by Simon Thomas MP (Ceredigion- Plaid Cymru).
Get these updates first
If you would like these news updates to be emailed to you as soon as they come out, then join our real food mailing list.
Register Here
News
