Developments in reforming the Community’s farming policy are heating up across Europe. EPHA is ensuring that health is on the agenda says Policy Director, Genon Jensen.
Everyone knows that CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) isn’t working, but most have difficulty in agreeing on what the policy instruments for change should be.
The Commission’s July Mid-Term Proposal for reform set out its vision, and is now being discussed in the European Parliament and EU Council. Civil society is holding policy debates and strategising on how to make the CAP deliver what citizens want – namely, access and production of safe and healthy food, sustainable production methods and re-vitalised rural communities and environments.
EPHA has an important role to play to ensure that public health concerns are brought to the forefront of this debate. We have therefore joined forces with the joint NGO CAP reform group in several important initiatives mentioned below. One of the group’s members, Friends of the Earth Europe launched a campaign in October on sustainable agriculture called “Food and Farming: Time to Choose!” They want politicians, supermarkets and consumers to take action for sustainable agriculture, healthy food and local diversity. Their campaign also calls for ending subsidies for tobacco farming, a view shared by EPHA member organisations.
Open letter
An important initiative undertaken with other NGOs was an open letter to Commissioner Fischler on the Mid-Term Review of the Common Agricultural Policy in July, which was signed by the European Farmers Co-ordination, Eurogroup for Animal Welfare, Friends of the Earth Europe, WWF, European Environment Bureau, BirdLife International and EPHA. The letter stated that:
“The above groups representing millions of European citizens are demanding an urgent and radical reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. We have long been concerned about the unsustainable agriculture promoted by the CAP, its continued focus on productivity, exports, and the destruction of multifunctional family farming. The Mid-Term Review provides a real opportunity to reverse decades of harm caused to consumers, farmers, animals, wildlife, biodiversity, and natural resources. Until we get answers to a number of basic questions our deep disappointment towards the Common Agricultural Policy will remain.”
The message went on to describe concerns under the following headings:
- Pesticides (and the links with health, especially in children)
- Farmers’ income and food prices
- Food miles
- Factory farming
- Live animals export subsidies
- Dumping
- Farm animals welfare standards
- Tobacco (including the fact that tobacco receives more subsidy per hectare than any other crop in CAP)
- Nutrition (pointing out that the CAP has a crucial role to play in ensuring that consumers have access to a wide choice of nutritious foods for a balanced diet)
- Environmentally sustainable agriculture
- Environmental integration
The letter from the NGO alliance was widely published in European newspapers. In September, another joint open letter from some of the NGO alliance’s members was sent to the major papers across Europe asking Europe’s leaders not to stop the CAP reform process. It was a response to a campaign launched by the French minister of agriculture, along with six other agricultural ministers (Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Wallonia (Belgium)) who oppose any immediate reform of the CAP. The ministers’ position was published as a letter to the editor of the Financial Times on 23 September.
Two other major initiatives in which EPHA has been involved are the Health Intergroup on CAP and Public Health, which took place in Strasbourg on 25 September 2002, and the joint NGO reception and exhibition at Bibliothèque Solvay in Brussels on 14 November entitled “What the Common Agricultural Policy could be like …”. The event aims to highlight examples of what CAP could deliver in the future in terms of sustainable food and farming, and to encourage Europe’s leaders to go ahead with CAP reform despite opposition from some stakeholders.
Incorporating members’ views
In 1999, EPHA hosted a multi-stakeholder conference on CAP reform. The outcome was a statement on the CAP signed by some 50 cross-sector organisations. The statement is still valid today for its policy recommendations concerning CAP reform. Since then EPHA has continued to highlight the public health angle by giving talks, organising a parallel session on CAP Reform in the European Health Forum, speaking at European Health Forum Gastein both in 2001 and 2002, and publishing an issue of UPDATE dedicated to CAP and public health (July/August 2002).
Our current policy position is being further developed with the help of contributions to the debate from many EPHA member organisations, and other NGOs. The EPHA secretariat has thus far identified recent policy statements on CAP reform from the following member organisations:
- Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, UK
- UK Public Health Alliance
- Health Development Agency, UK
- European Heart Network
- Welsh Food Alliance.