Regulate Markets and Prioritize Food Sovereignty in the CAP, Insists SLG Ahead of EU Elections
In the last week of May, representatives from the peasant-worker union Sindicato Labrego Galego (SLG)—members of the European Coordination Via Campesina—tabled the ECVC Policy Recommendations for the June 2024 European Parliament Elections and the Subsequent Legislature before the parliamentarians and the media. They also presented the proposal for more market regulation as a feature of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The European Elections 2024, set to start on June 6, 2024, are taking place in a context where 6 million farms have disappeared in Europe over the last 15 years, and the average age of farmers is 57 years.
“Given the peasant uprisings across Europe, where demands for fairer agricultural prices, markets, and better working conditions are clearly prevalent, the upcoming European elections must enable our political leaders to organize a transition of agricultural and food systems towards the right to food sovereignty,” SLG noted in a statement issued at the end of May. They reiterated that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) does not focus on the needs of citizens but on corporate interests.
“Our problems as food producers are mainly related to the agro-industrial model aimed at export, which promotes the concentration of productive units and the replacement of peasant farmers with industrial workers, often under semi-slavery conditions, with a lot of precarious migrant labor,” said Xosé María García of SLG. “Therefore, we want a radical transformation of the model. To achieve this goal, the Sindicato Labrego Galego, along with other organizations within the European Coordination Via Campesina, proposes policies that allow for an agroecological transition on the path to sovereignty for European peoples and, at the same time, enable generational renewal—not only of the surviving farms but also making it possible to start new farms, which today is a feat, if not a miracle.”
The union articulated specific measures in this regard. The recommendations and proposals included ensuring viable prices and increasing the number of farmers to facilitate the transition to agroecology, adopting public policies that regulate agricultural markets and production control, redistributing production to more farmers and regions in Europe, and guaranteeing the right to healthy food for everyone. Prioritizing local food and the needs of populations over exports requires halting free trade agreements. It is essential to strictly regulate all Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), including new genomic techniques, and enforce farmers’ rights over seeds. Public policies should prioritize access to land to integrate more new farmers and ensure soil health, as currently, half of the European agricultural area is controlled by just 3% of farms. Climate policies should shift towards direct emission reductions and agricultural transition, avoiding any carbon credit mechanisms linked to land. Additionally, livestock farms should be rebalanced across all European territories by 2035. Finally, the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) should be included in all EU public policies on food and agriculture.
The union also insisted that to carry out this shift in agricultural policies, a paradigm change in market regulation is essential. The European Parliament will co-decide the new CAP, and it appears as if it will focus on carbon credits, turning pollution into a business where some can buy and others can sell. SLG demanded that the next Common Agricultural Policy focus on market regulation. “Subsidies can have their function, but to achieve prices that cover production costs and remunerate our work, we need market regulation, which should include removing food from the World Trade Organization (WTO),” stated Ana Rodríguez.
In its report “Bringing Market Regulation to the Center of the CAP,” the ECVC explains that agricultural market regulation is the missing piece needed for the European Green Deal. Their recommendations for market regulation include regularizing the production and distribution of agricultural volumes through the reterritorialization of agriculture, ensuring fair prices through mechanisms for stabilizing agricultural prices and inputs, increasing the bargaining power of producers and regulating profit margins in the agri-food sector and large distribution, securing the repeal of the WTO agreement on agriculture and the adoption of a new framework for international agricultural trade based on food sovereignty, and managing imports and exports more fairly.
“One of the objectives of the European Common Agricultural Policy is to ensure sustainable agriculture in Europe. However, we have seen little improvement over the past 30 years. In fact, we observe a deterioration of the environment, society, and public health,” SLG noted. The union called for a shift away from the current neoliberal paradigm so that the regulation of markets and prices of fair and stable food and agricultural products allows for a planned transition of European food systems towards reterritorialization and the creation of 10 million new farms in Europe, an essential precondition for bringing about food sovereignty. “This food sovereignty includes realizing the fundamental right to food, democratizing food systems, and a shift towards international solidarity. This should be the new compass for the European Union in the 21st century,” SLG added in its note.
This post is also available in Español.