In an open letter sent to E.U. Farm Commissioner Dacian Ciolos, Vanden Avenne pointed to the need for farm ministers to emphasize the importance of developing efficient and sustainable feed and livestock production, representing the major outlet for vegetable crops and co-products from the food and biofuel industry.
“Food security should become strategic policy goal both at E.U. and global level,” he said. “Modern feed and livestock production provides key solutions to effectively deal with price volatility and supply of affordable food products for a growing world population.”
He pointed to FEFAC members’ involvement in a series of public-private partnerships seeking to increase sustainability and resource efficiency of livestock and feed at national, E.U. and international level. The increase of feed efficiency is a key tool to improve performance of livestock production. He welcomed the E.U. Farm Ministers conclusion at the May Farm Council meeting that access to competitive raw materials is the key for a competitive sustainable development of E.U. livestock production.
FEFAC said it therefore fully supports any efforts of E.U. and global regulators to increase market transparency on financial markets as well as on physical commodity markets but strongly advises E.U. and national government authorities to associate the private sector both regarding exchange on market information on production and stocks as well during the management of crisis situations.
FEFAC called on the E.U. Farm Ministers to systematically tackle and review regulatory burden and remove measures which may hamper the fluidity of markets for agricultural raw materials, without compromising feed and food safety standards. These measures raise legal uncertainties leading to lower predictability of agricultural markets, which amplifies normal market price volatility (e.g. the E.U. GMO policy).
