The European Committee of the Regions is currently drafting an opinion on Safeguarding food security and reinforcing the resilience of food systems to bring forward local and regional perspective on the matter. The Rapporteur, Piotr Całbecki (PL/EPP), President of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region would like to gather your views on this topic.
More in particular, the working paper raises following questions :
- Is the idea correct that the war in Ukraine should act as a catalyst for a fundamental reform of food production and distribution policy in order to improve EU citizens' quality of life and the competitiveness of the EU?
- Should the European Commission change the agricultural policy paradigm towards increasing the importance of integrated farming (linked to the shift to organic farming), and what proportion of total food production could/should be constituted by this type of production?
- Is the EU population willing to bear higher food supply costs in exchange for more supply certainty and more food of local/regional origin?
- How can the problem of food waste be tackled effectively? Most food wastage take place in households, so is the only effective solution to shape the right social attitudes through awareness raising? Are any administrative or organisational measures known to be effective in this regard?
- Is it reasonable to expect at EU level a higher proportion and scale of investment in research into healthy food production, particularly food with high nutritional value?
- Is the idea of EU solidarity in the area of food security, which consists in counteracting the risk of EU regions experiencing shortfalls in the supply of particular foodstuffs, or even the risk of excessive fluctuations in their prices, the right one, and if so, what instruments should be used for its implementation?
The adoption of the CoR opinion is scheduled for the end of November 2022.
You are cordially invited to participate at the stakeholder consultation which will take place on 22 June 2022 at 10h00 (Brussels time) at the premises of the European Committee of the Regions, Rue Belliard 99-101, 1040 Brussels, meeting room JDE53.
The consultation will be hybrid: you can participate either in person or online.
You can also send your comments and/or your position papers to nat@cor.europa.eu.
Kind regards,
Secretariat of the Commission for Natural Resources (NAT)