Activities of Claude GRUFFAT related to 2021/2208(INI)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on addressing food security in developing countries
Amendments (16)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Stresses that a policy on ensuring food security in developing countriesConsiders that it is important to help developing countries to put in place public policies on agriculture and food that can meet the needs of their rapidly growing populations; notes that this food security must mirror the founding principles of the common agricultural policy, in that its primary goal must be to provide affordable, sustainable and safe food for its citizens while affording a fair income and standard of living for itnumerous farmers;
Amendment 12 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Notes that, even today, almost 820 million people living primarily in developing countries do not have enough to eat and 2 billion people suffer from malnutrition; points out that most of these people are farmers who struggle to access the resources they need to produce (land, water, seeds, etc.) because of their poverty; stresses that this drastic situation is forcing them to leave the countryside, expanding the urban slums and fuelling migratory flows;
Amendment 16 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Emphasises that agriculture and food security are a priority and form the foundation blocks for broader economic and social development, and i; Insists that agricultural development must support self-sufficient agricultural production systems andfarmers by giving them responsibility in the creation of sustainable agricultural production systems, based on agro- ecology, allowing for self-sufficiency and resilience in order to tap into the food sovereignty inof the developing countries;
Amendment 23 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Points out that each nation in the world has the right to feed itself with its own resources, and that it would be unrealistic to believe that the European Union could and should meet the needs of the developing countries with rapidly growing populations; notes that this is not its role and that it does not have the capacity for it; stresses that the Union can of course show solidarity by providing food aid here and there on a temporary basis in the case of climate disasters or armed conflicts, but that it should focus on contributing to the global food balance by mobilising the international community to develop governance and democratic organisation to ensure food security based on tackling waste, putting an end to the plundering by certain powers of the resources of developing countries (including land grabbing) and, above all, ensuring adequate management of food security stocks; points out that this would also contribute to the fight against the risk of shameless financial speculation on the international agricultural and food markets;
Amendment 27 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
Amendment 33 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Considers that EU support via its cooperation and development policy must not mean imposing our models or our technologies, which are often ill-adapted to other countries’ agriculture models, economies and crops, but must instead be based on collaboration, notably through training and exchanges of knowledge, giving farmers ownership and independence in the definition of projects that they themselves prepare in conjunction with the other actors in their regions;
Amendment 40 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Notes the negative impacts of ILUC (indirect land-use change) especially on developing world food security. This displacement effect of the EU using its arable land to produce fuel not food, shifts production to developing countries, where people struggle to feed themselves; Notes that such displacement effects as ILUC can also occur within those 3rd countries who export agrofuels to us. Direct land use change also occurs with e.g. palm oil plantations replacing tropical forest and savannah. A huge impact on global hunger is also the 14% target of agrofuels within transport fuel, within the RED renewable energy directive, which therefore drives global deforestation and hunger;
Amendment 49 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Underlines that the farm to fork strategy is the EU’s most ambitious policy framework to promote a more sustainable and resilient EU food system and support a global transition to sustainable food systems; notes that this is a major step forward on the road to a crucial global transition in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, but that the transition must be based on agro- ecological approaches, food models with more balanced consumption patterns, measures to tackle waste at all levels, and a fairer distribution of income and foodstuffs;
Amendment 52 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Notes that the developing world has already shown that food security can be ensured by following agroecological (AE) methods pushed by the UN FAO and their soil preservation drive, as well as other SDGs. Agricultural productivity has risen many times over (offset by the concurrently high population rate increase in some regions). Tambourini et al 2020 1a is a meta-study of meta-studies, comparing 15k farms globally, showing that in 2/3 of cases, AE produces as much if not more than conventional chemically dependent farming systems. AE also costs much less for developing world farmers; _________________ 1a https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 345323439_Agricultural_diversification_ promotes_multiple_ecosystem_services_wi thout_compromising_yield
Amendment 63 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Amendment 68 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. ENotes the EU Treaty obligation in article 208 TFEU that should encourages increased consistency between EU development and trade policies, in order to support the global transition to sustainable agrifood systems and food sovereignty and security;
Amendment 76 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Calls for an independent stand- alone complaints mechanism that is open to civil society actors such as small farmers' cooperatives for example signalling breaches of rules such as dumping with milk powder or meat products that can sporadically collapse local markets;
Amendment 78 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 b (new)
Paragraph 7 b (new)
7b. Calls also for PCD (policy coherence for development) obligations to be evaluated by the EU Ombudsman, including the work of the Commission's DG Trade e.g. chief trade enforcement office;
Amendment 87 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Notes that while lifting export subsidies and decoupling direct payments has significantly reduced the risk of dumping practices, some areas of concern persist and should be closely monitored, in particular agricultural sect, such as internal support that allows EU agro-industrial businesses to buy cheap agricultural products on the EU market and then exporst still tied to coupled income support in many EU Member Stateome of them to developing countries at very low cost, thereby competing with local, subsistence products.
Amendment 89 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Notes a particular area of concern is meat and dairy production, as the export orientation of EU farming, and even if only taking advantage of basic and coupled payments, can place EU farmers at a significant advantage compared to some of their developing world peers, and can collapse local markets in agricultural products when undercutting with EU products occurs;
Amendment 91 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8 b (new)
Paragraph 8 b (new)
8b. Notes that although this disparity been challenged for many decades, it has never been qualified or quantified; Calls therefore for an independent and impartial review of barriers to unfair trade, that evaluates the competitive positions between farmers in the EU and Least Developed Countries and so assesses the Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) of the EU1a. Notes that such a study should compare like for like and control for scale of undertaking, so that the effects on smaller farms can be isolated, as for example those exporting into/out of the EU can tend to be the biggest enterprises; _________________ 1a Article 208 TFEU