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Farm to Fork: European Parliament backs green transition against massive industry pressure

Posted on 20 October 2021

In a plenary vote yesterday, MEPs defended and reinforced the EU’s roadmap for a sustainable transformation of our food systems.

The vote is a hugely important sign of support for the European Commission’s agenda and for the European Green Deal, and shows that MEPs withstood immense pressure from the agricultural lobby and conservative political groups who seek to undermine the Farm to Fork Strategy’s green targets. It provides a clear mandate for the Commission to move forward with the implementation of its transformative vision for how to minimise the health and environmental impacts of our food systems and make them more resilient to climate change.

By backing the own-initiative report crafted by the Parliament’s Environment and Agriculture Committees with broad support from the main political groups, MEPs voted down amendments – with the exception of one new recital [1] – that had been introduced in an intense last-minute effort by the farming lobby to water down the Parliament’s position. Instead, the report fully endorses the strategy and calls for its swift implementation.

“With its relentless efforts to sway this plenary vote, the agri-industry used the tried and tested tactics of scaremongering to delay action by focusing on partial and biased ‘evidence’. However, the science is solid and unquestionable: the way we produce and consume food is putting an impossible strain on the planet, and the cost of inaction could be gigantic,” said Jabier Ruiz, Senior Policy Officer on Agriculture and Food at WWF European Policy Office. “With their vote, MEPs showed that they are not ready to cave in. Instead, they have endorsed and reinforced the Farm to Fork Strategy. Making our food systems sustainable is now a consolidated political priority for the EU.”

For more information:
Jabier Ruiz
jruiz@wwf.eu
Senior Policy Officer, Agriculture & Food Systems
WWF European Policy Office

Bartosz Brzezinski
bbrzezinski@wwf.eu
Communications Officer
WWF European Policy Office
Tel: +32 484 28 15 10

Notes to editors:
[1] In this new recital, MEPs underline the importance of performing impact assessments on forthcoming legislations under the Farm to Fork Strategy. This is a standard procedure for all EU laws.

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