Year: 2022

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Regulating the most polluting livestock farms is justified

This post was first published in Acid News No. 4, December 2022 and is reproduced here with permission.

In April 2022 the Commission proposed to amend the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) to increase its effectiveness in reducing emissions of industrial pollutants that are harmful to human health and the environment.

The Directive seeks to ensure that installations operate using Best Available Practices. Installations covered by the IED are required to operate in accordance with a permit which sets conditions in line with the principles of the IED.

Around 52,000 installations are currently covered by the IED, of which 23,000 are large pig and poultry farms. One of the revisions proposed by the Commission is to extend the scope of the IED to include large cattle (dairy and beef) farms and to lower the size threshold for the inclusion of pig and poultry farms.

With a proposed threshold of 150 Livestock Units (LSU), this would increase the number of farms covered by the IED to around 185,000.… Read the rest

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Tracking structural change in EU agriculture

Let me welcome you to the first blog post on capreform.eu since I last posted in July. The long absence was due to two reasons. First, the blog was hacked which prevented me from accessing the back end where I construct the posts. And second, a series of commitments over the summer and autumn meant that I did not have the time (or skills) to work out how to regain access to the blog. Fortunately, the blog posts themselves remained available for those who wanted to read them.

I have now found a way around the block. The site will need a bit more work to fully stabilise it and secure it against future hacking attempts but at least I am able to post again. And for this first post after the enforced break I thought to look at what the recent publication of the Agricultural Census 2020 results on the Eurostat website can tell us about the changing structure of EU agriculture.… Read the rest

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EU throws hand grenade into global agri-food trade

On 6 July 2022 the EU circulated to WTO Members its proposed revisions to Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) for two neonicotinoid insecticides clothianidin and thiamethoxam (the documents include the formal notification to the TBT Committee, the proposed draft Commission Regulation, and a comparison of existing and proposed MRLs by agricultural product).

Under WTO rules, this is a necessary step when changes in MRLs are proposed. Other Members now have 60 days in which to provide comments on the proposed changes. These comments are then considered by the Standing Committee on Plant, Animal, Food and Feed, the EU body consisting of Member State representatives that decides on pesticide issues, before final approval is given to the proposed Regulation.

While such notifications of changes in MRLs are routine, this particular notification stands out because it is the first time that the EU, or indeed any WTO Member, has proposed to set MRLs on the basis of the global environmental impact of the specified pesticides rather than on the basis of good agricultural practice (GAP) while ensuring protection of consumer health.… Read the rest

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Taking developing country interests into account when designing Green Deal trade policies

Today I gave a presentation on the implications of the European Green Deal  for agri-food trade with developing countries to a webinar organized by the European Landowners’ Organisation (ELO) (the presentation can be downloaded here and you can also listen to the presentation itself as well as the webinar as a whole at the following link). The presentation was based on a paper I am preparing on this topic commissioned by the ELO and the issues raised at the webinar will feed into the final version of the paper.

The urgent need to address the challenges that face our food system, to provide healthy and adequate nutrition for all and ensure decent livelihoods while remaining within planetary boundaries, is not in question. The European Green Deal and Farm to Fork Strategy requires that food placed on the market should not only be safe but also sustainable and contribute to better health outcomes.… Read the rest

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Antibiotic legislation as a mirror clause

The first priority of the French EU Presidency in the first half of 2022 under the ‘Agriculture and forestry’ heading is to ‘encourage Council discussions on reciprocal environmental and health production standards for European products and products imported from third countries with the aim of subjecting imported products to certain production requirements applied in the European Union where necessary, to strengthen the protection of health or the environment on the largest possible scale, in keeping with World Trade Organization rules (“mirror clauses”)’.

One of the issues on the French Presidency agenda will be the completion of the outstanding legislation necessary to fully implement the Veterinary Medicinal Products (VMP) Regulation (EU) 2019/6. This legislation came into actual effect last Friday 28 January 2022. It can be seen as the first example of the use of a mirror clause for the protection of health. It imposes additional restrictions on the use of antibiotics for animal production in the EU and extends certain of these restrictions to imported animals and animal products.… Read the rest