The Agriculture Committee of the European Parliament believes that more must be done in the EU to improve and protect biodiversity. However, this should not come at the expense of the agricultural sector. On Thursday, the Comagri committee listed numerous concerns and conditions regarding the Green Deal’s biodiversity plan.
According to the Agriculture Committee, the EU does need an ambitious strategy to halt biodiversity loss, but it must be based on scientific facts and figures. In doing so, the committee reiterated its earlier call for feasibility studies to be conducted first on the effects of the Green Deal and the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The Agriculture Committee now wants to establish that more biodiversity must go hand in hand with more environmentally safe crop protection products if farmers are to reduce their use of chemical pesticides. They want the EU to improve the rules for approving new crop protection products that have a smaller environmental impact.
MEPs again urged EU countries to encourage farmers to set aside at least 10% of their land for biodiversity, for example hedgerows, buffer strips, areas where no chemicals are used, and temporary fallow land.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will have to play a key role in protecting the biodiversity of agricultural land, says Comagri. This ‘agri wishlist’ has now been submitted to the Environment Committee (ENVI), which will likely establish the European Parliament’s biodiversity strategy at the end of April.
It is uncertain whether all the wishes, requests, and demands of the agriculture-oriented Agriculture Committee will be adopted by the ENVI Environment Committee. In many Green Deal matters, the Commissioner for Agriculture (Wojciechowski) is not the leading or decisive figure, but rather Environment+Climate (Timmermans) or Food+Health (Kyriakides) are.
For the 'Dutch agricultural voice' in the EU, it also applies that in the current legislative term, only two MEPs have a full seat in the Agriculture Committee (and two substitutes), whereas in the ENVI Environment Committee Dutch factions hold four full seats (and four substitutes).
From the Agriculture Committee, Bert-Jan Ruissen (SGP) is the only Dutch member who, as shadow rapporteur, is closely involved in the ongoing trilogue negotiations on a new agricultural policy. From the ENVI Environment Committee, the two vice-chairs Bas Eickhout (GreenLeft) and Anja Hazekamp (Party for the Animals) have influence over the handling of these trilogue negotiations.