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FOE welcomes EU U-turn on farming. Fischler backs greener agriculture production
19 January 2001
Friends of the Earth warmly welcomes EU Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler's view that Europe should “encourage and promote environmentally-friendly production methods which respect animal welfare” [1].
Fischler's comments were made at Berlin's traditional "Green Week" agricultural fair and follow similar views from the German Government in recent weeks in the wake of the first confirmed cases of BSE.
Pete Riley, Real Food Campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said:
"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. For too long environmentally-friendly farming, such as organic, has been treated as a fringe activity. Instead huge sums of public money have been used to support intensive systems of production which have been bad for people, bad for animals and bad for the environment. The BSE crisis shows how seriously things have gone wrong with the way we produce food.
“Agriculture Minister Nick Brown must act before the next round of EC reforms, which are due in 2004, to prevent any further crisis in UK farming. MAFF should use the powers it already has under the last EC reforms to ensure that money 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 30% target 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).
Notes:
1. Statement from Franz Fischer “Doors open to more sustainable agriculture.” 18 Jan 2001
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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Jul 2008
