Activities of Benoît BITEAU related to 2022/2183(INI)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on the objective of ensuring food security and the long-term resilience of EU agriculture
Amendments (26)
Amendment 22 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph -1 a (new)
Paragraph -1 a (new)
-1a. whereas transparent statistics on agricultural production from both public and private stakeholders are essential, especially in a context of market concentration of the grain sector;
Amendment 23 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph -1 d (new)
Paragraph -1 d (new)
-1d. whereas the 1994 Marrakech Agreement and in particular the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture have contributed to the specialisation of agricultural regions in the production of specific commodity crop, thereby creating path dependencies in production systems; whereas this situation is not resilient to crises, since it leaves notably food import countries vulnerable to price shocks;
Amendment 32 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph -1 (new)
Paragraph -1 (new)
-1. whereas according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Food Price Index hit high record in February 2022; whereas it states that factors behind food inflation are not limited to crop conditions and export availabilities, but a much bigger push for food price inflation comes from outside food production, particularly the energy, fertilizer and feed sectors[1]; [1] https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113 332
Amendment 33 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph -1 b (new)
Paragraph -1 b (new)
-1b. whereas the G7 Agriculture Ministers’ statement of 11 March 2022[1] declared that G7 Members ‘will not tolerate artificially inflated prices that could diminish the availability of food and agricultural products’ and committed to ‘fight against any speculative behaviour that endangers food security or access to food for vulnerable countries or populations’; [1] https://www.fas.usda.gov/sites/default/files /2022-03/g7-extraordinary-meeting- statement.pdf
Amendment 34 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph -1 c (new)
Paragraph -1 c (new)
-1c. whereas a number of countries, notably in Africa, are highly vulnerable to price shocks because of a double dependency on imports of staple crops and on a limited number of grain exporters for a high percentage of those imports; whereas food import dependencies have also arisen from changing dietary patterns, and notably a shift towards a handful of staple crops, i.e. wheat, rice and maize;
Amendment 35 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph -1 e (new)
Paragraph -1 e (new)
-1e. whereas most food import dependent countries were already highly indebted before the Covid-19 pandemic; whereas rising food import bills has exacerbated it, which resulted in an increasing portion of public budget being used to service external debts, thereby affecting the capacity of low-income countries to building social protection systems to combat hunger, despite the Common Framework for Debt Treatments;
Amendment 36 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph -1 f (new)
Paragraph -1 f (new)
-1f. whereas the Farm to Fork Strategy aims to reduce the use of farm inputs and notably to decrease the overall use of chemical pesticides by 50 %, of the most hazardous pesticides by 50 %, and of fertilisers by at least 20 % by 2030;
Amendment 51 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Stresses the need for the EU to champion human rights and the Right to Adequate Food as a central principle and priority of food systems;
Amendment 64 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Stresses the impact of climate change, the COVID-19 crisis and conflicts on food security in developing countries; in addition, draws attention to the direct consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which are exacerbating global food insecurity on food prices, global supply of grains, as well as on the price of energy and fertilisers, which resulted in sparking a third global food price crisis in 15 years, thereby undermining hopes of eradicating hunger by 2030; highlights that the food price spike is exacerbated by structural weaknesses of the food system, notably inequalities and a glaring lack of social safety nets, food import dependencies, market concentration of the food industry, speculation on agricultural commodities;
Amendment 66 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Highlights that according to recent analyses from the Global Network against Food Crisis (GNFC), hunger was already on the rise for the past five years, due to conflicts, weather extremes (notably droughts and flooding resulting from climate change) and economic shocks resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic; accordingly, stresses the need to pursue synergies between humanitarian, development and peace actions, while addressing the structural weaknesses of the global food system;
Amendment 77 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Is concerned by the fact that one in three people worldwide still do not have access to adequate food; deplores the fact that in 2022, according to the World Food Programme, acute food insecurity is affecting a record 349 million people; stresses that it is children and women who are the most vulnerable to food insecurityaccording to the FAO, the number of people going hungry grew by about 150 million since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and that one in three people worldwide still do not have access to adequate food; highlights that rising food prices hit poor people much harder, as they spend more of their income on food; deplores the fact that in 2022, according to the World Food Programme, acute food insecurity is affecting a record 349 million people; stresses that it is children and women who are the most vulnerable to food insecurity; recalls that the SDG 2 can not be achieved without gender justice and strengthening women’s rights; calls on the EU to support developing countries in enacting public policies that facilitate women’s access to inputs, resources and services, and guarantee their land rights; more broadly, calls on governments of developing countries to urgently implement progressive taxation to reduce inequality and develop universal social protection schemes, so as to ensure all people can access affordable food;
Amendment 87 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Is concerned by continuing rise in food prices; recalls that the World Food Price Index increased by more than 60% between 2020 and 2022; and the disruption of the global food market, that the invasion of Ukraine aggravated, in a context where both Russia and Ukraine are major food exporters, and together provided one third of global cereal supply and 80% of global sunflower oil; recalls that the World Food Price Index increased by more than 60% between 2020 and 2022; highlights that countries that were highly dependent on grain and oil imports from the Black Sea region were the first to suffer the effects of the crisis;
Amendment 92 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 c (new)
Paragraph 7 c (new)
7c. Notes with concern that market speculation, manipulation and the trading of food commodities, especially in a context of war, can artificially inflate wholesale prices and lead to market volatility;
Amendment 95 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 d (new)
Paragraph 7 d (new)
7d. Calls on the Commission and European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to fully evaluate the role and extent of speculation in the determination of commodities prices and raw materials while emphasising the need to urgently enhance financial transparency of the market trading of commodities, especially for food, energy and raw materials for fertilisers against insider dealing, market manipulation and price distortions; and calls for an immediate and temporary ban on speculative practices; notes that the ongoing review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFiD) is a unique opportunity to tackle food speculation by introducing strict limits to the capacity of a trader to speculate on food commodities and fixing the current the loopholes in the regulatory framework;
Amendment 96 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Recalls that inequality is the main driver of food insecurity, not unavailability; henceforth, the solution to tackling hunger is not to increase production, but to address the structural problem of unequal distribution of food; warns against short-sighted responses to the crisis, including backsliding on food system reform commitments, by i.e. suspending environmental regulation and ramping up production to ‘feed the world’;
Amendment 98 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Stresses that, while pushing millions of people into hunger, the global food crisis has also generated huge profits for traders and agri-business companies; accordingly, encourages the EU and its Member States to taxing extreme wealth and corporations' excess profits as an effective means in providing funds to governments to alleviate poverty, inequality and hunger;
Amendment 101 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 b (new)
Paragraph 4 b (new)
4b. Notes with deep concern that the war in Ukraine had led to significant input cost increases; recalls that climate- friendly agriculture entails i.e. to reducing dependence on fossil fuel energy, including the use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers; in this respect, recalls the Farm to Fork Strategy’s intention to reduce farmers’ dependency on external outputs, thereby ensuring long-term food security while preserving ecosystem services; recalls equally that biodiversity and its associated services – pollination, predators of pests, increased resilience of agroecosystems to erosion, droughts and flooding, soil formation and carbon sinking – are essential to provide sustainable food production; urges the EU and its Member States to remain fully committed to its international engagement on climate and biodiversity, the Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy, which shall serve as a template for EU investments in the remit of development finance, with the view to harness resilience and food self-sufficiency of developing countries;
Amendment 103 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 c (new)
Paragraph 5 c (new)
5c. Acknowledges that debt relief is essential to enable net food importing low-income countries to pay spiralling import bills and to put social protection systems in place; calls on the Commission and the Member States to urgently evaluate, in coordination with their international partners and relevant international institutions, all the means available to avoid any default in the balance of payments of food importer countries, including direct funding and restructuring of their debt; reiterates the importance of prioritising grant-based financing as the default option, especially for Least Developed Countries (LDCs);
Amendment 107 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Recalls the importance of ensuring coherence among all EU policies in order to guarantee the effectiveness of the EU’s commitment to global food security; notes with concern that poor implementation of PCD resulted in several circumstances to undermining food security, as in the case of EU fat-filled milk powder exports in West Africa, which jeopardised their local production, or EU massive imports of fishmeal and fish oil produced in West Africa; highlights that fighting food insecurity entails i.e. to rebuild domestic food production; urges the EU to conduct an agricultural and trade policy consistent with the global right to food and to assess, on a regular basis, the compliance of the CAP and trade policy with Policy Coherence for Development;
Amendment 118 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Denounces the double standard policy of the EU towards pesticides, namely the practice of exporting banned toxic chemicals and pesticides to poorer nations that lack the capacity to control the risks, in full contradiction with PCD; recalls that in 2017, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, and the Special Rapporteur on Toxics, Baskut Tuncak, published a report stressing that excessive use of pesticides are very dangerous to human health, to the environment and it is misleading to claim that they are vital to ensuring food security; recalls equally that “Farm to Fork” strategy aims to gradually ban hazardous pesticides from agriculture and promote alternative practises; urges the EU and its Member States to lead by example, and, in line with international commitments, ensure that hazardous chemicals banned in the European Union are not produced for export;
Amendment 125 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 b (new)
Paragraph 5 b (new)
5b. Stresses that food dependency aggravates indebtedness of developing countries, thereby jeopardising the achievement of food security, as countries may seek to ramp up exports of cash crops to generate high levels of foreign exchange to service debts, rather than shifting towards growing staples for domestic consumption or diversifying their agriculture – which result in reinforcing their reliance on staple food imports in the longer term;
Amendment 133 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Urges the EU and its Member States to ensure food is prioritised over crop-based biofuels, especially in a context of the inflation of food prices; stresses equally the need to accelerating the shift towards healthier diets with less animal products in Europe and other high-income countries, to reduce the global ecological footprint of meat consumption, while addressing food security;
Amendment 137 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Welcomes the commitment by the EU and its Member States to allocate EUR 7.7 billion for global food security over the period 2021-2024; stresses, however, the need for European aid to reach the most vulnerable populations as quickly as possible and to adapt to the context of multidimensional crises; in this regard, recalls the need to enhance the ability of countries to build and sustain social protection systems, as it will provide the greatest and most lasting benefits; on this line, supports the establishment of a new financing mechanism, in the form of a Global Fund for Social Protection;
Amendment 152 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 b (new)
Paragraph 6 b (new)
6b. Notes with concern that overreliance on global value chains has created massive vulnerabilities, as a high number of low-income countries rely on just a handful of large agricultural producer countries to feed their people; stresses that short supply chains hold major potential to address current food system failures; recalls that family farmers and smallholders, who provide more than 70% of the food supply in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, have demonstrated their ability to provide diversified products and to increase food production sustainably; yet there has been long-standing underinvestment in small- scale farming, including from donors;
Amendment 162 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Calls on the EU and its Member StatesRecalls the right to food sovereignty, as the right of people and countries to define their own agricultural and food policies, with the aim to enabling each country to feed its own population and to be self-sufficient and autonomous; recognizes the importance of the “UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas”; on this line, calls on the EU and its Member States to support investment in small-scale farming, in particular through Team Europe, to help to build solutions with local actors and to support initiatives tailored to local and regional realities in order to accompany partner countries towards food autonomy, through the development of local and regional agricultural production capacities, the shift to more resilient traditional crops (e.g. millet instead of rice) and the transition to sustainable and resilient agri- food systems. ; more broadly, reiterates that EU funding and external assistance on agriculture shall be in line with the transformative nature of Agenda 2030, the Paris Climate Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity and urges to prioritise, accordingly, its investments in agroecology, agroforestry and crop diversification both inside and outside the EU;
Amendment 173 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 b (new)
Paragraph 7 b (new)
7b. Stresses the need to better regulate markets and create fairer and more flexible trade rules for low-income countries that allow them to build stronger local food systems; believes that international trade rules of WTO – often negotiated to benefit and protect farmers in rich countries – must be reshaped, with greater space for low-income food-deficit countries to adjust their levels of food imports and exports, and invest in domestic food production; supports the development of strategic food reserves, given the role that stocks can play in buffering the impacts of food crises;