Vice-President Frans Timmermans of the European Commission believes that recent studies on the effects of the Green Deal and the Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy present a distorted picture. According to Timmermans, these studies look only at the production side.
Climate Commissioner Timmermans said this on October 7 during a public hearing of the Energy and Climate Committee of the Dutch House of Representatives. MPs were then in conversation with Timmermans about the European Commission’s climate plans, the package of climate measures titled ‘Fit for 55’. Timmermans participated in this meeting via video link.
“By looking only at certain targets on the production side, you get a distorted image. This is a more general problem with the current scientific model used in many of these studies. For example, the demand side is not taken into account, and a lot is happening there,” a spokesperson for the European Commission quoted Timmermans as saying when asked.
“You experience it yourself in the supermarket: growing demand for food with fewer pesticides, better animal welfare, etc. And in Europe, the demand for organic food has grown by 60% in 10 years. […] That has not had a dramatic impact on production,” Timmermans told the MPs.
All research published to date on the effects of reducing chemical agents in agriculture points to a decrease in production, higher food prices, less export, and more import.
A spokesperson in Brussels pointed out that these studies do not predict the future, while it is clearly evident that the costs of doing nothing are higher. In the final conclusions of the JRC study, the first finding is stated as ‘times are changing…’
Last week, the majority of Agriculture and Food ministers in Luxembourg stated that climate protection must not hinder food production. Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia emphasized that the requirements must not lead to higher food prices. Above all, the Eastern European EU member states emphatically rejected any limitation on the number of animals.
Only the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark agreed with the “Fit for 55” package. But these countries also demanded more financial incentives for farmers to protect the climate.