European Parliament supports "From Farm to Fork" strategy

A second victory for the European Citizens Initiative "Save the Bees and Farmers" was acheived this week. It’s also good news for all European citizens who want "green" reform in agriculture and food production. Despite fears of serious lobbing from agricultural organizations, industrial farmers and pesticide producers, MEPs expressed their support for the EU's plan to make food production more sustainable and environmentally friendly. In a vote on Tuesday (19.10), a majority of MEPs supported the "From Farm to Fork” strategy, which aims to impose greener agricultural practices by 2030.

Document calls on Brussels to impose binding legal targets on countries to reduce the use of pesticides, fertilizers and animal antibiotics in agriculture and calls for an explicit link between the Green Deal and the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy. These are the requirements of more than 1 million and two hundred thousand European citizens, who have suppoted the demands of the ECI "Save the bees and farmers". They were also submitted for consideration by the European Parliament and the European Commission earlier this month.

According to Politico, during the initial round of voting on the wording of the document, some of the results were quite similar. Many representatives of the European People's Party have voted in favor of controversial changes - for example, removing the requirement for mandatory food labels or deleting binding targets for reducing agrochemicals. However, the majority of the EP strongly rejected any effort to change the report, with the exception of an amendment calling on the European Commission to carry out "sound, scientificly justified impact assessments" on all forthcoming legal proposals.