20 MAY 2020

ICSA president Edmond Phelan has said the EU Commission’s launch of its Farm to Fork strategy would not succeed unless it charted a way to deliver a fair price to the primary producer.  “The EU cannot continuously expect the farmer to do more for less, to produce more with less, and then to compete on an uneven playing field.”

“It simply will not work if we have ever higher standards in Europe and then undermine our farmers with more and more imports from outside the European Union from countries where such standards are not upheld. It will not work if we allow large corporations to get around lax labelling laws so that ingredients can be sourced from other regions which are cheaper because they don’t follow EU anti-microbial or pesticide rules. In reality, we have to have a fundamental re-think about whether the high ideals of the Farm to Fork strategy are compatible with importing 300,000 tons of beef into the EU.”

ENDS