EU agriculture ministers meeting in Prague for their informal farm council agree food sustainability and food security are twin priorities.
This reflected the war in Ukraine, climate change and residual Covid impact.
Ministers called for focus on science and innovation, citing new plant breeding techniques, sustainable increases in productivity and precision farming techniques, and stressed that the European Commission and member states needed to move from scepticism about science, not hinder innovation.
It seems the EU is close to agreeing laws on gene editing techniques around sustainability, drought resistance and less reliance on pesticides and fertilisers.
Rain too late for summer crops
Meanwhile, the latest cereals information data from the commission confirms rain came too late across Europe to save yields of many summer crops. As a result its latest Joint Research Council (JRC) bulletin confirms, yields of all summer crops were below the five-year average.
This echoes comments from farm lobbyists Copa.
The experts of the @COPACOGECA working group met in Brussels this week and confirmed the first trend announced in July:
the 🇪🇺 total #cereal production should reach 2⃣6⃣9⃣ million tonnes, recording a significant decrease of 🔻6.8% compared to the 2021 harvest.
1/2 pic.twitter.com/rFhN8gkhIR
— COPA-COGECA (@COPACOGECA) September 9, 2022
Drought was worst in southern Europe, with conditions delaying preparations for sowing in Spain. The JRC says conditions are “pre-dominantly favourable” for sowing winter crops, thanks to rain in August, but again with some differences between states.
A report has confirmed the intensification of global ownership of companies in the agricultural industry.
Growing dominance of Chinese businesses
It comes from ETC, which describes itself as an eco-justice organisation. It says two companies control 40% of the commercial seed market. It was 10 firms 25 years ago. On the trading side, the group says in 2020 just 10 commodity traders dominated the global market in agricultural products and food. It says these traders, thanks to market dominance, have enjoyed surging profits.
The ETC report also reveals the growing dominance of Chinese commodity trading businesses. It claims the state-owned Chinese trader Cofco is now second only to Cargill in terms of sales.
The report cites many well known agri-supply businesses that are majority or minority-owned by Chinese companies. It also has examples of Middle East businesses taking strategic share ownership in several agricultural companies as part of a policy to protect supply sources, and warns this dominance by a small number of businesses raises concerns at a time of rising food cost, uncertainty and climate change.
Conversation