European farmers protested for better food systems
While the Council presidency and European Parliament negotiated about the regulation on nature restoration and before the decision of the renewal of the approval of glyphosate, 250 protesters from the Good Food Good Farming movement took to the streets of Brussels. Under the slogan We can’t eat promises!, the demonstration urged EU decision-makers to deliver on the Green Deal commitments and step up ambition after the 2024 EU elections.
Key files outlined in the Farm to Fork Strategy have effectively been blocked by corporate lobbies and reactionary politicians, some of which have been proven to have close ties with the world’s largest agri-food corporations.
Marilda Dhaskali, EU Agriculture Officer at Birdlife Europe says: “Empty promises by our politicians will lead to empty fields. If we are serious about stopping biodiversity loss and climate change, we must take steps forward, not backwards.
Europe will be on the right track if the Commission proposes its Sustainable Food Systems Law and if Members of Parliament vote for a meaningful pesticide reduction regulation.”
An acceleration of climatic and economic crises
„As farmers, we are experiencing an acceleration of climatic and economic crises. We need ambitious European policies focusing on the transition of food systems, agroecology and support for small and medium-sized farms. These are the changes that will enable farmers to meet the challenges of the coming decade” said Mathieu Courgeau from Confederation Paysanne, farmer and member of ECVC.
Tobias Schied, farmer and climate activist at Fridays for Future added, “The least humanity has to do to survive is eat and drink, so the stability and sustainability of food systems is very significant. Our food depends on the climate and the crisis is rising, so we need to act now”.
Our food system must radically change
“EU policymakers are well aware that our food system must radically change to achieve sustainability, which cannot be detached from social and ecological justice objectives. It requires fulfilling and protecting the rights of peasants and rural workers, everyone’s right to food – even beyond EU frontiers – and our right to a healthy, clean environment” says Almudena Garcia Sastre, EU Policy and Advocacy Officer at FIAN.
The protest action also included a moment in which MEPs from four parties sat around a table and were “served” the political demands of citizens. During the month of October, the Action Days for #GoodFoodGoodFarming took place and 500 citizens from fourteen European countries wrote postcards to MEPs with their demands for better food systems.
Source: Birdlife, photo: Unsplash, Birdlife
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