As Chairman of the Land Use and food Policy Inter-Group in the European Parliament, I often find that we are on the edge of over-lapping policies. None more so than in the areas of agriculture, food policy and health. In advance of the CAP ‘health check’ we took a look with a number of stakeholders to see how healthy or not the CAP is and what sort of ‘healthy’, or otherwise, policies it led to.
A second informal roundtable was held by the LUFPIG Intergroup Tuesday in a bid to look at the complex interlinking of the various policies affecting the food we eat and the way we produce it. Bringing together health NGOs, farmers, consumers, the food industry, environmental NGOs and other key Intergroups in this area (MEPs against cancer, fruit and vegetable Intergroup), the roundtable took as a case study the current fruit and vegetable regime reforms and asked whether these types of reforms in the agricultural sector would have a significant effect in the area of food policy and public health.
Many of the participants noted the irony that in its planned CAP Health check 2008 the Commission is not seriously intending to take into account ‘health’ policies affected by the CAP. It was also suggested that health policy is at the stage environmental policy was 10 or 15 year ago. Each and every policy now decided on in the area of agriculture and food policy needs to take into account the time bomb of public health, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. More innovation and education in the area of healthier eating is clearly necessary as is a clear line in the various arms of policy making.
The biofuels debate is an area where decisions in the fields of energy and environment will impact on agricultural production, food prices and consumer policy.
So, working with a UK based health NGO, Heart of Mersey, our LUFPIG group aims to provide a coalition of interests concerned with ensuring that the CAP becomes and stays as ‘healthy’ as possible, while ensuring a real balance in world food supply, between the overfed and the underfed.
Those wishing to join us area very welcome and should contact the LUFPIG coordinator in my office on thijs.berman-assistant3@europarl.europa.eu or on jane.kelsey@skynet.be.