The European Union is trying to supply diesel fuel to Ukrainian farmers, presumably via Poland. In the coming weeks, they need to sow their winter grain but are facing a severe fuel shortage. During the war against the Russians, they have supplied much of their diesel to the tanks and trucks of the Ukrainian army.
The potential European diesel supply is, according to Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, one of many measures the EU is taking against the Russian war. Wojciechowski explained the agri-action package the European Commission is currently working on this Thursday morning in the agriculture committee, analogous to the previously presented energy action package.
The agricultural package consists of at least four main elements: a market intervention in the pig industry; opening the CAP crisis reserve of 500 million euros with a possible tripling in reserve; allowing agricultural use of fallow bio-strips; and permitting state aid from national governments for their farmers.
Wojciechowski said the entire package will first be discussed next Monday with the 27 agriculture ministers, and officially presented in Brussels next Wednesday.
The initial responses in the agriculture committee showed that many Members of the European Parliament are far from agreeing on what exactly should be done. The earlier plea from Climate Commissioner Frans Timmermans to ask farmers to produce twice as much biogas has been both applauded and rejected. They could use the additional space of the bio-strips for this purpose.
Several EU politicians say agriculture could better use that extra land to produce more maize for animal feed. Others advocated using that space to produce extra grain for African countries: not for animals but for people.
The Dutch MEPs in the agriculture committee again called for relaxing EU rules on ‘artificial fertilizer’ so that more organic (animal-based) manure could be used. It is known that Dutch Minister Staghouwer also believes that more animal-based fertilizer can be utilized.
According to the minister, the rules of the European Nitrates Directive should therefore be relaxed. He is placing this issue on the agenda for the meeting of European agriculture ministers next week.