Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development Ordinary meeting
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AGRI European Parliament
Follow its sittingsThomas Waitz
It's about generational renewal in agriculture today. And we will have our rapporteur, Maria Walsh. Well, this is the first point of our agenda today. First, we will hear the presentation of the study, Generational Change in the Comparative Analysis of Businesses Run by Young Farmers in Selected EU Countries. The AGRI Committee commissioned this study under 2025 research program to provide insights about generational renewal in agriculture in the EU and an overview of common agriculture policy and national policies and strategies applied by a sample of selected member states, which are Finland, Spain, Luxembourg, and Poland to support young farmers.
The study also provides evidence on the types of farm businesses operated by young farmers in those member states. The study delivered by the policy department provides complementary analysis for the preparation of the EINI report on the commission's communication and generational renewal strategy, published last October. The study represents a preliminary step in the preparation of the report under a generational renewal strategy published by the Commission last October. The rapporteur for this file is, as I already mentioned, Madam Maria Walsh, and we will proceed as follows. First, we will hear a presentation of the main findings of the study.
The commission represented by Gil Shields, who will then get the floor. The rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs will take the floor immediately after, followed by catch the eye, and I've seen one or two members raising their cards already. The author of the study will have then another seven minutes to reply to the questions, followed by the final remarks by DG Agri. Let me welcome the author of this study, mister Arndt Munsch, researcher at the ER g m b h, Austria Institute for Regional Studies, who joins us today to present this study on generational change in agriculture, comparative analysis of businesses run by young farmers in selected EU countries. Please, mister Munch, you have 12 minutes for this presentation.
I will wave with this hammer when we come close to twelve minutes. And yes, please take the floor, Filf Gniggen.
Arndt Munsch
Thank you very much. Dear chair, dear members, thank you for taking the time. Today, I'm going to present the results of the study Generational Change in Agriculture, Comparative Analysis of Businesses Run by Young Farmers. This study was prepared by myself and my colleague, Manon Badwigs, from the Austrian Institute for Regional Studies. These are the agenda points for the presentation today, covering EU trends and then diving into the selected member states and finishing off with some conclusions and policy options.
The number of farmers and also the number of young farmers has continued to decline over the last decade. Between 2010 and 2023, the number of farm holdings in total has declined from around 12,000,000 in 2010 to 8,400,000 in 2023. So that's a decline of 3,600,000 farm holdings. Concerning young farmers, so those below 40 years of age, the number stands at around 960,000 in 2023. However, the situation at the level of the individual member states is quite heterogeneous, whereas some 11% of farm holdings are managed by young farmers under the age of 40 across the EU, and 1% are managed by those below 25 years of age.
In other member states, it looks quite different. There are some member states, Czechia, France and Austria with relatively young farming sectors where around 20% of holdings are managed by young farmers and conversely, relatively low shares of farmers above the age of 65. On the other hand, some other member states, Ireland, Cyprus and Portugal, see relatively more pronounced aging, with some 40% to 50% of farm holdings managed by farmers above the age of 65 in 2023. We selected four member states for more detailed analysis in this study. So, what we did to select these member states was, number one, looking at member states with generally positive or stable generational renewal trends, which cover a variety of production sectors and systems throughout the EU, as well as those which implement specific actions to support young farmers.
We also sought to maintain some degree of geographical balance and complementarity with other studies. So you'll notice perhaps some of the well performance in the previous slide is not covered by this study. There are other publications, notably by the rural network, which also look at these member states, and we sought to provide some degree of complementarity. The study itself covers the CAP strategic plans, national policies outside of the plans, as well as the business characteristics using descriptive data analysis. Starting perhaps with farm size and structure.
In the four member states that we looked at, particularly Finland and Luxembourg stand out with relatively large farms. And in those member states, also the farms operated by farmers below the age of 40 are much larger than the average. In the other two member states, so Spain and Poland, the distribution across the age classes is much more stable and not that different. In the next few slides, I'm going to present a bit of information on the sectorial distribution of farms across the age classes, so the share of holdings specializing in the respective sectors. The top bar is always the general sector, so all age groups, and then the bars below are the younger age classes.
In the case of Finland, where the general farming sector has specialized very strongly into field crops to some extent, dairy and other grazing livestock, we see that the youngest farmers are much more prevalent in dairy and other grazing livestock and less represented in field crops. Moving into the other part of Europe, into Spain, we see that, for example, other permanent crops are much less represented among the youngest age classes, whereas other grazing livestock or non-dairy is much more popular, particularly for those below 40 and those below 25. Wine as a specialization is quite commonly represented throughout all age classes. In Luxembourg, what we find is that the sectoral distribution between the age classes is quite similar, though there is some degree of more pronounced specialization in dairy farming for young farmers, as well as in horticulture, which is not very much represented in the overall sector. Field crops are also less specialized.
Poland, on the other hand, sees a relatively stable distribution across the age classes. There is some degree of lower mixed farming, so higher specialization for the youngest farmers and comparatively less specialization in field crops as opposed to the young and the older age classes. Some degree also dairy farming and other grazing livestock are more common. What can we say to sum up these descriptive characteristics of the farming sector, particularly looking at business models of young farmers? In the analyzed member states, more or less, there's a relatively high share of young farmers, or in the case of Spain, a strongly growing share of young farmers.
Young farmers in these countries also mainly operate family farms, and they mainly enter the sector through their families. In most cases, young farmers also manage larger farms than older farmers, and they generally operate economically viable and specialized businesses. We also see that, to some extent, they are more open to producing organic or mixed methods than older farmers. In relation to the Common Agricultural Policy. Under the CAP 2023 to 2027, around EUR 8,400,000,000 to 8,500,000,000 in public expenditure, so including national co-financing, is dedicated to young farmers.
And these four member states that we looked at, all of them, of course, implement coupled income support for young farmers. They also implement setting up, so installation aid for young farmers. However, the four member states all employ some degree of specificity in their individual policy mix, including CAP measures. Cooperation, for example, is quite common. So this includes Finland, Spain, and Poland, particularly for land transfer and related needs.
On the other hand, investments are, for example, found in specific provisions for young farmers, and the investment support are found in Spain but also in Luxembourg. Poland also operates knowledge exchange and risk management tools, with specific provisions to support young farmers. It is worth noting that there are quite differentiated implementations of the CAP in these four member states. Finland, for example, operates with higher aid rates for young farmers in remote areas. In Spain and to an extent in Poland, there is specific support for women as entrance into the sector, be it through other eligibility rules or higher financing.
And in Luxembourg operates very high national co-financing. In addition to CAP support, we also looked at complementary national policies. So to sum up, before diving into the four member states, we found that particularly access to land and capital are also supported by national policies, and there are some provisions to ease farm exits, such as via specific elements in pension systems, social security systems, or in tax provisions. In Finland, financial instruments are applied. There's some degree of tax relief if you seek to enter the farming sector.
And there's also social insurance to complement the EIP support and facilitate farm transfer. In Spain, national loan schemes and training programs support the entry of young farmers. In Luxembourg, there is no dedicated national policy at this stage, though they will seek to set up a one-stop shop approach for young farmers, and they operate with very high national co-financing for CAP support, which is tied to the level of training that the young farmer has. So, it does incentivize some degree of training and human capital accumulation. In Poland, there are preferential loans and public land allocation support for young farmers, and there's a separate farmers pension scheme which may be linked to an ease of farm exit since it guarantees relatively high income receipts in old age.
To sum up, starting with a few conclusions in the study. Generational renewal remains a structural challenge in EU agriculture. The number of young farmers continues to decline in many EU countries, though there are some member states which show more positive dynamics supported generally by integrated CAP and national policy mixes, stable frameworks for farm transfer, and also complementing national policies. By and large, young farmers tend to manage larger and more specialized farms. They tend to also have higher levels of training and operate largely economically viable businesses.
However, in relation to the entry into the sector, it is important to note that the CAP still plays a central role also in the three member states with some degree of strong national policies, but it cannot address all barriers on its own. And this is particularly in relation to the access to land. In relation to our policy options and needs that we identified in this study. We wanted to highlight the need to develop integrated policy mixes. So this means combining CAP support with national measures, particularly on land access and finance.
We also wanted to highlight the need to simplify access to support. So this could be one-stop shop approaches and generally reduce administrative complexity in measured delivery, also for national bodies. Addressing farm exits and farm transfer also means taking a look at pension systems, inheritance rules, and tax incentives, primarily to avoid disincentives to farm exit. Improved access to capital can be supported via complementary measures. So this may include financial instruments, which can leverage private capital to finance capital or land investments for young farmers.
We also wanted to highlight that looking beyond the agricultural sector supporting rural quality of life is important, which includes improving access to services and economic opportunities also beyond the farming sector and maintaining stable and positive framework conditions for generation renewal. We also wanted to highlight there's a need to address gender-specific barriers when it comes to the entry of young farmers. In 2020, around one-fourth of young farmers were women. So there is some degree of underrepresentation still there. This means better reflecting the needs of women among young farmers in the policy instruments.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Munsch. This was a point landing, nearly on 12 minutes. Thank you very much for this.
Also, to be complete, this study was created by you and by monsieur Manon or madame Manon Badouille. And the sheets of this PowerPoint presentation will be distributed to the members, after today's session. And now I would ask our colleague from the commission, mister Schildthuis, to give us his comments for four minutes, please.
Gijs Schilthuis
Thank you very much, chair. Thank you, Mr. Munich, for your very interesting presentation. Interesting to get an insight into these four member states. I thank you for the opportunity to briefly update you on the work on the generational renewal strategy adopted last October. And, in fact, a recognition of the fact that the efforts that are being undertaken today and in the previous presentation, you heard about the efforts and the financial efforts also made under the CAP, are insufficient in view of the big challenge there is.
We developed a strategy after wide consultation with young farmers, rural youth, member states, and stakeholders, and came to five axes. And I believe those five axes are also, well, responding to some of the points we just heard. It was access to land, access to credit and finance, access to skills, knowledge, and innovation, and then fair living conditions in rural areas, as well as financial security for retiring farmers. And to address these challenges is, of course, a range of actions. And I think it's appropriate to provide you with a little bit of information about what has happened so far with regard to these challenges, to these actions.
For example, on access to credit, we organized a roundtable with banks and young farmers to put them together in a room and to see what is not working or what practices are helpful to provide young farmers with better access to credit. And on the basis of that roundtable event in June, there's gonna be a larger conference in Warsaw to gather more young farmers and more people working in the financial sector to develop and spread the news about the practices that work. On access to land, we have a pilot project for the European Land Observatory underway, and are shortly establishing an expert group on farmland. And, for example, with regard to knowledge and innovation, one of the actions related to establishing a platform for women in farming. We have so far received over 650 applications, and are now going to work with those 650 interested people to set up this platform.
So these are just a few examples to show that we are actively implementing the strategy. Of course, the Common Agriculture Policy for the period 2028 and onwards is key for delivery. I would like to refer to the National Generational Renewal Strategies that we propose should be part of the NRP plans. And we also like to refer to the Starter Pack for Young Farmers, which we have created as part of the CAP proposal, to provide a comprehensive set of financial support measures for young farmers. The starter pack includes many of the known tools, so that's start-up aid, investment aid, financial instruments, but also novelties like farm relief, services.
And we should also focus more on succession schemes. So all in all, we believe that the strategy is very necessary and needed to address these big challenges for the EU. We have set as a target to move from 12 to 24% of EU farmers, young and new. And, also, we recommend 6% of agricultural spending to go to the generational renewal. So with that, I yield the floor, and I'm looking forward to the exchange of views.
Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you. Mister Shieltes, just mentioning, you didn't touch upon one point too much, and this is the question of retirement and the ability of farmers, female or male, to live a life in dignity after they have retired, because that's also a point that is touching the proposal for the next common agricultural policy. But, I want to hand over now to the person that is our rapporteur and most competent in this issue. Please, colleague Mary Walsh, take the floor for 4 minutes.
Maria Walsh
You're very kind, Cher. Thank you very much, and congratulations on your new appointment, even if it is for today. I wanna thank the policy department. Thank you for your incredible work. I think it's really important.
Our reports are well documented and then are reflective of the diverse realities across our member states. So it was great to see all four pointed out. A couple of points in particular stood out to me. The study shows that between 2010 and 2023, the number of farms declined by 26%, while the number of farmers under the age of 35 fell by 47%. And at the same time, as we just heard, and if you look at the commission's generation renewal strategy, they set a target to double the share of young farmers by 2040 from 12% to 24%.
And when you look at these figures in context, of the absence of a ring fenced budget for young farmers, the ambition to reach such figures simply do not match. So we need a dedicated ring-fenced allocation for generation renewal or at least 6% of the cap budget, and that's currently what we'll be working on until May 11, when you see our first draft, working with our shadows on this. This would send a very clear signal that agriculture is a strategic priority for the Union and that young people have to be central to its future. I applaud the study because they also highlighted two critical barriers, access to land and access to finance. In my own country of Ireland, it's estimated that establishing a new dairy farm, including infrastructure and assets, can exceed €1,000,000.
And for new entrants without a family farm, such costs are prohibitive. We therefore need stronger policy support to facilitate land mobility and transfer to young farmers alongside broader financing instruments that are better tailored to their needs. And this really leads me to my next question for the commission: is how do you envisage the upcoming land observatory improving access to land in real practical terms, and when do you expect it to become operational? And while a forum for discussion and data sharing in the top context of land observatory is most welcome, the key issue though still remains, how will this translate into tangible improvements on the ground reflective of the four countries and many others that you captured? Another finding is that member states with a higher share of young farmers tend to go beyond the cap by implementing complementary national policies.
I certainly welcome this. But I noted a few things. Farm relief services in Finland that allow temporary replacements during sickness, parental leave, or holidays, dedicated pension schemes for farmers in Poland, certainly something that you will definitely see in my draft, and higher national co-financing rates in Luxembourg. These measures are essential parts of a broader policy mix that would make farming a more economically viable, secure, and, dare I say, attractive career choice for many. And we need a proper exchange of best practices on the effective policies that are implemented in various member states.
The study also reflects a limited uptake of tools that facilitate farm succession, which could be linked to financial uncertainty, a lack of guidance on legal and administrative processes, and, even more importantly, a lack of open communication around succession. Again, I can only speak with the knowledge that I know of my own member state. We're simply not having those conversations around succession. And then a farm lands into probate, and then it's caught up, and often going to the higher bidder coming from outside of the community versus a young farmer renting it or buying it and growing their own, their own innovative farm. We need to normalize the discussions around succession, embed them within our policy framework, and support farm succession through integrated advisory services and assist the older and younger generations.
And the study further confirms that women remain underrepresented in farming support schemes. This has really disappointed me. Two member states, Ireland and Spain, in the last cap were the only two to actually add a dedicated ring fence, and I think it calls on all of us to make sure that next cap that's fixed. You gave us the example of the Spanish example of 15% top up in income support for women is one of the only two targeted measures identified. And if we're really serious about generation renewal, we cannot overlook half of the available talent that we have in our member states.
Strengthening women's participation in agriculture must become a very clear political policy priority across all our groups, and be supported by adequate funding. And finally, the study clearly demonstrates the central role of CAP in supporting young farmers across our member states, and this is precisely why the next CAP has to be equipped with the right tools and level of ambition that matches the scale of the challenge and the dissatisfaction we have with young farmers in our European Union right now. And my very final point, I really welcome we are having this discussion at this stage, not only for the generation renewal discussion that we'll have when my first draft comes out, but also how it will feed into the next common agricultural policy. Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Alright. Thank you, colleague Walsh, for your presentation, and we will now do a round of shadow rapporteurs. Some will be replaced. I think the first one, our colleague Sergio Como, who is still blocked, is replaced. I was informed by Madame Grapini.
Please, madam.
Maria Grapini
Thank you, Chair, dear colleagues. Thank you to the authors of the study. I would have wanted the study to encompass all 27 member states because we don't want a patchwork, and we need this in the agricultural sector. But the study confirms a very important thing, that generation renewal is not just a matter of age. It's a matter of economic conditions, territorial conditions, social conditions that should allow young farmers to join the sector and stay in the sector. But they need predictability for this.
And the number of young farmers has dropped, which means that the policies were not targeted properly. And this is not just a marginal problem. Future of European agriculture is at stake. Now, about these integrated policies, this matter is very important. The CAC support is the tenth most important.
It's very important to go hand in hand with the national programs, but we need a common agricultural policy. This is because young farmers do not get enough support to start a farm, they will not join the sector if they do not have housing and so on. This is why generational renewal needs to go hand in hand with decent income and certain power. We talk about 6% of the budget and new CAP, although I put forward amendments, it does not have a budget for young farmers. The territorial dimension is very important because we have mountain areas, faraway areas, outermost regions where they have other conditions.
Outermost regions are far away from central markets, and so on. They need certain conditions. We cannot have a one-size-fits-all solution, and their report needs to integrate women farmers. It's unbelievable that we have a majority population of women, and we have so few women in agriculture. So, of course, Europe cannot ask young farmers to join the sector unless they have the necessary conditions for a decent living.
Speaker 9
Generation renewal means enough income, enough access to land, and so on. Thank you very much.
Gilles Pennelle
you much indeed. This is a huge challenge when it comes to generational renewal. Listen to your statistics, talking about France, you said there were more young people than elsewhere. But in the next ten years, over half of farmers are gonna retire. Over the next ten years in France, half of farmers will retire.
And that means that the situation is extremely important when get to this generation renewal. So we agree there is a lot of regional, national aid, specific advantage when it comes to prices and access to funds. But to get involved in farming, you do need to be able to make a living. And no, that's the case. You have to, unfortunately, this bad news from Brussels, don't allow this.
There are lots of young farmers, for example, in farming schools. There are lots, they're all full, the farming schools, colleges in France, but they need to be paid properly. They have less and less trust in the CAP. They want to do away with, obviously, unfair competition, and they want to spend less time on the computer and more time in the fields. In 2026, a young farmer won't make the sacrifices that their parents or grandparents made.
They need weekends off. They need holidays. They need to be able to relax. And that all needs to be studied in how these farms work. We do need to make sure that these farms can have this free time.
Otherwise, they're just gonna be hitting the wall. And then to summarize what I've just said, they do need some good news, good news for their profession, for their future, their families, and that's not necessarily what they hear from us here in Brussels.
Thank.
Bert-Jan Ruissen
Thank you very much, chair. I'm speaking on behalf of our shadow operator, Veronika Vecranova. Thank you for the clear presentation. It confirmed what many of us already see in practice. So the European Parliament has raised generational renewal repeatedly in 2011, 2017, and again in October 2023.
So the European Court of Auditors also highlighted shortcomings, noting that support for young farmers was not sufficiently targeted and had limited impact. Yet, the situation is not really improving. So commission strategy is a good step. It identifies the right challenges and proposes useful tools. But the key question is how to make this work in practice.
Land is limited. And if support continues to concentrate on the largest farms, entry becomes harder for newcomers. This is why instruments such as deguing and capping, as discussed in the cap reform context, are really important. We should work towards a binding solution that is simple and workable for everyone, say the Shadow Aperture. We are also seeing livestock veterinarians, especially in rural areas, retire without replacement.
New professionals are simply not coming in sufficient numbers. This is an urgent issue and should be reflected more clearly in the strategy. So the generational renewal will not work unless we take a full-picture approach, including land, surfaces, skills, and overall living conditions. My question to the EPRS is, which member states are performing best in generational renewal and what are they doing differently? What are they doing differently?
Sorry, what are they doing differently? And my question to the commission is, do you also reflect related challenges such as the shortage and aging of pharma veterinarians in your policy? Thank you very much.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, Berthian. That leads us to our colleague from Renault, Jérémy Desalle. Thank.
Jérémy Decerle
thank you very much. Thank you for putting this subject on the agenda. It really is very important for the future of farming. What we lose when it comes to farming is human capital. I think our ambition here in parliament is that we shouldn't be losing these farmers any more.
I think if we want to deal with tomorrow's challenges, that is all we have to do. Thank you again to the speakers. Thank you for going to the various countries you went. I think the report we're going to be working on here in parliament on generational renewal, I think, is coming at the right time. So I'd like to thank our main rapporteur on this.
Thank you for the work that's being done currently. Various people have already mentioned this. This is of key importance, and it's a problem for everybody. European farming demographics, they're in a perilous state. So it's a very urgent problem.
The commission and commissioner Hanssen obviously have set this as a priority for their roadmap, their mandate. And obviously, we'll be feeding into what the commission is doing to make sure that in the CAP, there are some powerful tools in the pipeline. I'm not giving anything away here, but some of the things we're putting forward will have to be talking about a ring-fence budget for generational renewal. That'll have to be ambitious, that budget. We're talking about 6% of the CAP at the moment.
I would say that we should look maybe at 10%. That's what some young farmers and their organizations are asking for. That is a real objective, I think, that we in this Parliament might envisage. And then access to means of production, again, we'll be able to bring some answers there, in the report. We'll have to be thinking about a few safety measures.
And then another thing we'll have to be working and we talk about young public, but also there's an older public, and we'll be having to flank what they do. We'll need some sort of policy for those who are retiring. And I think that is also part of what we need to be looking at. And then a final point, this is a huge possibility, I think, now, huge opportunity. E, having our young farmers organized.
So we need to talk to the Young European Center, European Pharma Center. I'm sure they'll have a few answers as well. Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
I mean, today, we don't have too much scarcity of time. So I'm not too strict, but please stay more or less in the time frame. Thank you very much, Monsieur Deserle, for the Greens per Home Green, please.
Pär Holmgren
Thank you very much, Sher, and you're doing really great, Tom. And thank you very much for the presentation, of course. This is, as we all know, really important and strategy on generational renewal has been long needed for a long while. But we also need now to put real pressure on the member states to do these detailed analyses of barriers and also nationally and regionally adapted solutions. But at the same time, we all know the broad picture and the barriers.
The young farmers have been telling us all for years that it is increasingly difficult to access land, and land concentration is forcing ever higher capital requirements just to enter the sector. And this is something which the CAP has contributed to. The young farmers also told us that the accelerating climate change, combined with the lack of political long term will to support, finance, and invest in resilient production methods and climate adaptation such as organic farming. So I have a few questions, mainly to the commission. Not the least that we know, as you pointed out, that the interest in the uptake of organic farming and sustainable farming methods is higher among young and new farmers?
Why did the commission not include the uptake of organic farming as an explicit part of the strategy? And why is it not an explicit component of the starter pack for young farmers in the CAP proposal? And also, will the commission ensure coherence between the generational renewal strategies and the member states' organic strategies? I would also like to ask a question concerning the gender dimension in this strategy. As also the rapporteur Maria Welch pointed out, this is a very important issue.
Does the commission intend to encourage indicators and targets for the starter pack and NRP strategies regarding reaching young women? And how will the commission monitor and publicly report on whether generational renewal measures actually reach these young women farmers to an equal degree. We saw good examples from Spain and Poland, by the way, in the study. Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, colleague Holmgren. And for the left, I have noted colleague Saeedy with the Shedderrapateur, but I think our colleague Flanagan will take over. Please.
Luke Ming Flanagan
Yeah. Arash Saeedy has a very good reason not to be here today. He's got a new son, so potentially a new farmer in the future. So hopefully we can create the conditions to make it possible to go into farming, and I have three daughters myself, and if they ask me, should I go into farming, daddy, I'd say to them, well, the first question you've got to ask yourself is, will you actually be able to make a living out of this? And the first thing you've got to decide is, will you make a profit out of what you're selling?
Will the input costs be so high that you might not be able to make a profit? Will there be something else there to help you if you can't make a profit from the market, such as payment for public goods? And if I could see that they could make a profit out of their primary product and that they were to get payment for public goods, and they had some level of assurance going forward that there would be a living in it, I'd advise them to go down that route. And the review and the changes in the CMO regulation, it isn't all bad news around here. I think we did some good work there, and we had an excellent rapporteur from the EPP group.
I never thought I'd say that in this committee, but we did, simple as that. And we now have more protection for farmers when it comes to dairy farmers, maybe some more protection for farmers against processors and supermarkets. So there's some chance there, but I think it needs to be tightened up even further. Also, you'd have to ask, is will you get any time off? What if you want to have a baby?
What about maternity leave? Will there be farm relief services? And at the moment when you look at the cap budget and the amount of money available, I'd have to tell them you'd want to be very wary unless this money is increased. Likewise, payments for public goods, you'd want to be very wary, not because I don't want people to farm, not because I don't appreciate that we will have no food without young farmers, but my primary advice will be on the basis whether they would become paupers or whether they'd be able to make a living out of this. So we need to guarantee a bigger budget, and I see this 300,000 or maybe up to 300,000 that could be available, and that's wonderful, you know, no more than if I said to my daughters, a Ferrari each for Christmas, but it wouldn't be realistic unless there was a budget. And 300,000 or 200,000 is like about 50 payments on average for a farmer in Ireland from the cap.
So we've got to ask the question, where is this money going to come from? Degressivity will help, definitely help. Capping will help, but it won't give enough money. And finally, I think we need to look at part-time farmers and respect the idea of part-time farmers, because this is the idea that you are not as good a farmer if you are part time. You wouldn't say that about a lecturer.
I have a professor from Trinity University who works part time for me. Is she a worse professor? Is she a good advisor? In fact, she is better because of it. So we need to look at a bit of respect for part-time farmers because we talk about young people.
We need to listen to young people. And you know what? It would suit a lot of young people. Some of the new cap reform, remember that, the ones who are eager to hunt these farmers out.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, colleague Flanagan. And the round of rapporteurs and cello rapporteurs is concluded by our colleague, Mr. David.
Ivan David
We have mentioned, Chad, that we are talking about the future of agriculture. Yes, of course, the statistics are clear. We are losing farms, and we need to save this situation. We are talking about competitiveness. Well, in that case, let us have a look at farms in those countries that are competitive and those countries that, based on contracts, can enter the European market. Then we have huge chains that will be their competitors, and they are actually using their products in this way.
And so the question is, how can small farms be competitive? Nobody said it really clearly, but when talking about young farmers, I mean you have in mind small owners of agriculture or farms, agricultural businesses. Then, when talking really in a sensitive way about this, we need young farmers to enter this business not only as owners but also to be able to work in larger firms, larger companies that provide better conditions that can be used in a more targeted way that provides various options for competitiveness and to improve it in a way. So that is fundamental. If we say, generally speaking, that agriculture is based on family farms and that it will be the case in the future, well, these statistics will still be very sad when talking about agricultural farms, because when we push on higher competitiveness, better competitiveness to concentrate production, that will continue. That pressure will continue.
That is absolutely clear. And so that is why we have to, when talking about agricultural owners, talk also about the overall picture and their employees as well. Thank you very much.
Thomas Waitz
David, as we have only four colleagues, but we have five colleagues that asked for the catch the eye, I would say, let's collect all the questions, and then let's come back to our speakers. So we have 5 on the list. I was notified that you need to leave soon, colleague Buddha, so I will give you the floor first, please.
Daniel Buda
Thank you, chair. Thank you for your understanding. Yes. I need to go to the jury committee. Yes.
We are talking a lot about generational renewal. So I have a question for all those in the house now. How many of us would send our own children to work on farms? Are the working conditions adequate? Do they have predictability?
As the figures show, from the outset, a farmer earns 40% less than in any other economic sector. But yes, we do need generation and renewal. So I do have a message to the European Commission because they are making a mistake, given what happened nationally. The main problem that we are faced with is to maintain viability of farms and farmers once they enter the farming. Here's one example, dairy farms.
Dairy farmers go through a very difficult situation because milk now is sold under production costs. So farms need to maintain their viability in the future. So 6% of the CAP is really low. Thank you.
Madam Singer, please.
Thank.
Christine Singer
Thank you very much indeed, chair. Thank you for the report. It's very clear, you know, 11% of farmers in Europe are 40. You know, this is more than just statistics. That's a warning.
And we know that the CAP will play a key role when it comes to installation aid. You know, the commission with its strategy for young farmers, lots of expectations this year, and we'll be looking forward to the MP fee and how this is put in there. We see how there's a mismatch. A lot of political poker, I think, and I don't think that's what young people want. They want reliability.
So we need to be, when it comes to livestock, this is a great concern. We'll be losing, this is part and parcel of the society and regions in many parts of Europe. So they're very much welcome the fact that in parliament, can come up with this eligibility catalog for young people. So commission, the proposal on the new MFF and the CAP, decisions are being moved. Are we therefore promoting young people in kindergarten?
How will we be deciding where we're going to put money into social infrastructure? What will you say to young people when it comes to them having a secure future? Are you ready to go along with initiatives in parliament and maybe push forward the promotion of young farmers? Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, sir.
Stefan Köhler
Thank you for this report. Thanks for this. I think it shows where we are and how bad the situation is. A lot has already been said. We do need long term financing longer than we possibly have at the moment.
We do need to look into the long term. We need interest-free funding, and we need access to land. We need to simplify the rules there. Thinking about young people, obviously, you can do a lot with the CAP and money there, but what's more important is giving young people perspectives, making sure they have planning security in member states. You see, building permits being postponed, and they need predictability.
We do need to recognize this as a very valuable sector, and this is what politics needs to work on. We need to be very clear on this. I think we are neglecting younger generations at the moment. Young farmers are the key to our food security, and we need to be putting more focus on them.
Cristina Guarda
I'd like to focus on proposals five and six in this study. I think it's an excellent study, but I would take those two proposals together. There's no point paying young people to stay on the land if they don't have the essential services when they're there, and women know this better than anyone. Only 26% of farmers are women. They're hit by a double whammy, faced with the territorial challenges and gender challenges too.
The right to stay is the crucial issue here. So on the basis of performance-based indicators, we could be looking at ways to ensure that governments have to provide funding for rural inland areas and their services with a percentage figure, which is very clear, so that young people can see that and see what will be spent. We don't have that in the commission proposal at the moment, and we really need to include this. It's not just me saying it. It's what young people are saying, what women farmers are saying, what precisely the people who came here to talk to us at the recent hearing said. I think this is a vital thing.
So, commission, what do you think? Expenditure indicators for rural areas for health, transport, housing, water, having that in the next MFF, what do you think? Follow-up question, could we enter into a collective commitment to focus not only on generational renewal as a concept, but as an aspect of our financial practice?
Ciaran Mullooly
Thank you, chair, and thank you to the authors of the report and indeed to the rapporteur for the work that's been done on this file. The statistics are sobering, when it comes to the issue we're discussing today. We know at EU level that the average age of our farmers is 57 years old, 12 percent of them 49. And we know in Ireland, just 4.5 percent of farmers are 35 years of age, according to the Central Statistics Office, with a third of them 65. And that same EU average had just went up to 58 years of age.
I suppose if there is any positive from a member state perspective, it is that six out of 10 Irish farmers, 60%, have identified a successor, while 40% haven't done so yet, which represents an opportunity, I suppose, for access to land in the future. But it is a difficult issue, but it's one that has to be tackled in the context of the new cap and in the context of the MFF because there are four key issues here, Gerard. Access to land, access to finance, access to a life alongside farming, whether it's maternity leave or otherwise, and access to a succession plan or a pension. We are relying on the commissioner and indeed the commission to come forward with a viable plan, which will give farmers options. But at the end of the day, they will ask us to hear one thing: take home pay.
What will be the take-home pay at the end of the week? What will be the minimum farm income that can be guaranteed? If we cannot answer that question and work with the farming community, we are going to lose more and more farmers. Thank you.
Speaker 31
Thank you. Danforth Oleshuk, Boraf.
Thank you very much indeed for this study. It's not a profession. It's a calling, if you will. When it comes to young farmers, whether a lot of them are ready to do the job, they need real valuable stable policy from member states and the EU to be able to secure their income. We need to make sure there's gender equality.
We need a proper set of tools to be able to have them carry out the profession properly. At the end of the day, value for their work is the most important thing for farmers, because they are growing our food. That's what we need attention from the EU. Thank.
Thomas Waitz
Madam Konig, and that leads us back to the author of the study. Just to remind you, questions were what have some states done best or different. What about access to advisory services, access to land, access to finances, the whole income question, then all the, let's say, well, sick leave, holidays, weekends, all these chapters, but then also co-financing of member states. There were several questions in this direction. Predictability is the main question.
What does degressivity and capping potentially play a role already? Also questions on ring-fenced budget, but that goes more towards the commission. Also, question on organic farming and young farmers, gender questions on how to support women, raised expectations that we might not be able to fulfill. I think it's an important one. And expenditure indicators, and transparency.
I saw you all taking notes, but I just wanted to repeat some of the key points so we get good answers from your side. So I hand back to Kolik Munch. You have another 10 minutes, please.
Arndt Munsch
Thank you very much for all these questions and the very interesting debate. So to start off, perhaps with one of the last elements, which was mentioned, quality of life in rural areas and essential services. We made this as a small point of the study, but there are many other different studies which have been recently published, which talk about this issue. It is indeed quite important to have services available in rural areas, which is also tied to the economic quality of the fabric and the ability to have jobs outside of the agricultural sector tied to agricultural value chains, which then generate local revenues and allow municipalities to finance services. And particularly for the most remote and most rural areas, this is increasingly a challenge to finance.
So much on that, that this is also related to the issue of the attractiveness of the farming sector. In relation to access to land and finance, this is a central point, I think, that we also discuss quite often in this study. Access to land, we highlighted in several member states where they employed certain tools to improve access. So, this could be, for example, by having certain provisions for young farmers such as in Poland, which gives them first access to land allocation mechanisms, and so on, which is potentially a step into that direction. We see also in these, in most of the member states that we looked at, that they all try to employ some sort of financial instruments to improve access to finance.
At financial instruments, we found also in other studies sometimes enjoy high uptake, sometimes enjoy uptake. This depends also on market conditions and also on the extent that farmers can potentially get easier access via their bank. But regardless, there is quite often a funding shortfall, and there is a certain role these financing instruments can play, particularly to alleviate the funding gap, which was also highlighted in the generation renewal strategy, I think, to the tune of EUR 14,000,000,000 in 2022. So harnessing or collecting some additional private capital to close this funding gap could be one option. In relation to access to advisory services and generally to knowledge sharing.
We found that indeed, young farmers tend to be better educated than farmers who've been incumbent for longer. But still, considering that the farming sector in Europe is relatively specialized and requires a lot of expertise, there's also certainly a lot of training needs to alleviate when you're trying to enter the sector. So we found, for example, in Spain that there were specific tools to target deficits, knowledge deficits. And this is something which is also done via the CAP in a lot of member states. In relation to digressivity and capping, I think the question here is so I want to take the step towards land concentration and the price of land for young farmers.
So this is, of course, a big issue. I think this is also quite well documented. It's also relatively well documented in academic literature that there is a link between the receipt of direct payments and rental land leases or rental prices. So there is maybe a debate to be had in this direction. However, the question is also, of course, how do you disentangle and how do you address this in the future?
Capping larger farms is, of course, something, or capping payments for larger farms frees up funding for other policy needs, in this case, farmers. But of course, large farms also face very specific issues. Maybe to look at, I think, one of the general questions we had, which was in relation to the better-performing member states and what they're doing differently. So this study that we presented here today covers some of them. And others were covered in different studies, notably by the Rural Network Study, which was also recently published, I think last year, maybe in late autumn.
Generally, some of these member states also look to maintaining a good degree of coherence between CAP and national policy instruments. Sometimes, there are specific provisions in social insurance schemes and pensions, which may also incentivize farm exit. I wanted to touch upon the question also of time off and maternity leave. So we found, for example, in one of the member states that we looked at, so that is Finland, that they did have certain provisions in their social security system to also allow farmers to take time off and particularly also to engage in maternity leave and have replacement workers. So there is something that are policy instruments which can be done, which can be implemented to make entry into the sector more attractive.
I think with this, thank you very much.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, Mr. Munsch, for answering the questions. And also, I hand over to Mr. Schiltus for a maximum ten minutes, if you wish, please. Thank you, Chair, for.
Gijs Schilthuis
The floor, and thank you for the various questions on this vast topic. Maybe I start with the more general points. Miss Singer asked, for example, what to say to young farmers and chair, you reiterated this issue of raising expectations too high. I think for commissioner Hanssen to make this a big issue and to raise expectations, if you wish, is, I think, the right thing to do. This is his vision, what he sees as the need for European agriculture to have more young farmers, and this is closely linked to the whole debate we have around food security in Europe.
So I think it's a very important topic, and it's important to raise also expectations, not to sit back and just see the demographics go the other way. The other side of the coin is, of course, that farming is a business. So when we talk about take home pay, I think there's no guarantee take home pay, but we need to ensure the viability, economic viability for farming. Right? So there, the CAP plays an enormous role, but also the simplification agenda and the competitiveness agenda of the commission plays a role.
The trade agenda and to make sure that trade is done on fair terms and that opportunities are provided to farmers as part of that agenda. So I think it's this economic agenda, this wider economic agenda, is very much the backbone, of course, also of being able to attract young farmers to go into farming. And through the CAP, I think it's important to recognize the ring fencing for agriculture as well as the 10% for rural areas that has been put on the table by the commission, as part of the MFF discussions. And this question of rural areas is key. The rural investments are key.
Somebody remarks, farmers need a life. This is, of course, very much also the message we have around this rural investment. And it links, for example, to the point made by mister Rausen about veterinarians and the shortage of veterinarians. To my knowledge, the sector indeed reports shortage of veterinarians. And this is part of the need for a wider rural development to make farming viable and attractive.
Another point that came, of course, is everything related to retirement and the generational renewal, one generation to another. I think that is key. It's not just about young pharmacists, it's also about the older generation. Today, we have support for this transition in the CAPP through cooperation measures, which is working in a number of member states. You've heard from the examples today that schemes are assisting this transfer in a number of member states.
And this is precisely what we want to encourage, and why one of the five pillars, if you wish, of the strategy of the commission is linked to this retirement in dignity. And of course, as part of that, we also need to look at our own policy instruments, for example, at direct payments. And you know that the commission has proposed that farmers receiving a pension should no longer get the income part of cap support as of 2032, and that will be one of the topics to debate as part of the MFF discussion because that is really also part of this strategy of trying to focus the funding on those who need it most and on the new generations. There were questions about the land observatory. In that regard, I should like to thank the parliament for the pilot project that is at the basis of the land observatory that we are setting up.
First, it has started. First results are expected in September to be presented in a land expert group, and the pilot project is running until the end of next year. Of course, the aim of this pilot project is really transparency for actions on the ground on the land markets. For example, in relation to taxation, zoning, inheritance, that's also where member states come in. Obviously, land markets are also really in the remit of member states' responsibility.
And that is also what we've seen in the examples today, that member states take that issue up in many cases. So we provide transparency, and we support member states in working on these land markets. There were some questions on organic. Mr. Horngrund, why have we not made organic a part of the starter pack?
You could argue that organic is really part of agri environmental support also to agriculture. So it's part of our agriculture, environmental, and climate actions. A different article of the cap reform, but it is indeed correct that many young farmers are engaged in organic farming. And in terms of the linkage between generational renewal strategies and organic strategies, I think the best reference would be to organic action plans of member states. So for the current period, we've really tried to align that and really tried to make sure that what member states are committed to in terms of their organic action plans is reflected in how they've allocated money under the common agricultural policy in their CAP strategic plans.
And obviously, the similar, a similar orientation, I would very much see as important for the future. You also asked about tracking expenditure in relation to women, female farming, female farmers. So there, what we have is, under the performance regulation that is linked to the entire MFF, we have gender equality as a horizontal principle. And this implies that interventions under the national and regional partnership plans will be measured through a gender budgeting methodology. So we're able to monitor how much of the money goes to women, including under the CAP.
So I hope that will address the concerns in that regard. And miss Guada also asked about monitoring, other aspects of policy and precisely the performance regulation, I think, provides the framework for monitoring a number of key indicators for our policy. If I'm not mistaken, I've replied to all the questions that have been asked specifically to the commission. And I hope that in the debates that are going to follow on the Common Agriculture Policy Reform, on the next MFF, on Negrosivity and Capping, on the Startup Act for Young Farmers, we will really focus on this issue of generation renewal to get the best policy mix to help this new generation start farming successfully. Thank you very much.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, mister Schiltos from DG Agri for actually reacting to the questions that were raised and a wide range of questions. Thank you very much for this. And that leads us back to our rapporteur, Madam Walsh, please.
Maria Walsh
Thank you very much. And again, just to thank our policy department for preparing such a comprehensive, insightful study, as well as the commission for both, to your point, Chair, answering the questions there and also presenting their communication on generation renewal. Again, to thank colleagues, and to pick up some of the points that I fully agree on, and just to quickly run through, obviously, on the inclusion of outermost regions, women in farming, farm relief services, commission strategy is a good step, but we need to push further. The point on vets in rural areas, human capital loss, the need for a ring-fenced budget that's progressive, and I hear the point on 10%. From my shadow rapporteur, the pension scheme mentioned, we heard from the organic farmers, in particular, need to be included, land access, resilient productive measures, assurances in the sector and inclusion of part time farmers, absolutely heard that point and agree, competitiveness and the need to improve, as well as planning security, and expenditure indicators in the next MFF.
I could go on. There were a lot of great points made by colleagues. I won't hold up proceedings any longer, but just to stress for people, particularly your advisers in the room, my draft report will be translated on May 11. We'll present in comm agri on June 2, and amendments are due on June 10. And I think the most important is that we get those points across and that we have a concrete report to go into voting, and that we can have no Christmas trees, and we actually have a really solid report that means young farmers know they have full support, and we're hearing them in this room, and we're making that change in order to fit into Norbert Lind's CAP report as well as the MFF overall.
Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, Madam Walsh, also for picking up that responsibility and preparing a draft. And once again, thanks to colleague Munsch for presenting the study and doing the study, also to mister Schilters for answering the questions. And just a short remark, my daughter is thinking about taking over our farm, and there are three questions that are decisive. Can I make a living? Do I find infrastructure like kindergarten, school, a doctor, a shop to buy something, and the mechanic?
And will my generation keep on supporting her? This is the main question. On my farm, and I think many young people share these main objectives. So very important work, because if we lose the next generation, we're gonna lose a lot of family farms. So thanks to everyone who took the floor and who is engaged in that question.
Now just for all the members that came later to explain why I am sitting here today, our chair, madam Rechincova, is in Cyprus at the council. Her colleague, Linz, is blocked still because of bomb alarms, not just in Paris, but also in Medie and Deutsche Bahn. Whoever knows Deutsche Bahn knows what I'm talking about, and so on. Also colleague Satya Como saw the secretariat was going through the list of available members along seniority, and this gave me the exceptional honor to chair for you today. And as colleague Lindsay is not yet here, once he arrives, I will immediately hand over. I have been asked to go on with the exchange of views with the Commission on regulatory harmonization in the EU hemp sector, addressing legal barriers and supporting sustainable growth.
Hemp is a sustainable and versatile agricultural crop that could greatly help advance the EU's bioeconomy. It aligns with key initiatives such as the European Green Deal, the Farm to Fork strategy, and the EU protein strategy. However, the growth of the sector is hindered by several regulatory barriers. Different approaches to hemp cultivation and harvesting across 27 member states with regard to the use of different parts of the plant, particularly the flowers, create legal uncertainty. This deters both farmers and investors, thereby slowing down the development of local value chains.
Today, we have called on the commission to clarify these rather controversial issues. Particularly, attention will be paid to the reform of the CMO, which sets out the strategy for the development of the sector. So please, Miss Maison, you have the floor for four minutes.
Maison
Thank you, chair. And let me start by congratulating you for the way you are chairing. So you have gone through the list of those who were to take the debt position before you. And so the system has landed on the right person for chairing this afternoon. Good afternoon, Honorable members of parliament.
Thank you very much for having scheduled an exchange of views today on regulatory harmonization in the EU hemp sector, and for having put the focus on addressing legal barriers and supporting sustainable growth. In the EU, hemp is mainly cultivated for fiber and seeds. The acreage for hemp cultivated for fiber has almost doubled in the last 10 years. It reaches today 38,000 hectares. France is the most established market with about 23,000 hectares.
But interest and areas are growing in many member states. Hemp cultivation brings agronomical and environmental benefits that can help the EU agriculture sector become more sustainable and resilient. Traditionally, hemp-derived products are used as food, feed, and textile. But innovation and the growing bioeconomy have led to new applications for hemp as a raw material for a broad range of bio-based products. The EU bioeconomics strategy identifies lead markets that the EU will focus on.
And in four of the five lead markets, hemp materials have a huge potential as a feedstock. I'm talking about textiles, construction, bioplastics, and biochemicals. The bioeconomy is a strategic opportunity for the EU. It can generate economic growth, and farmers should be able to benefit from these opportunities. Hemp offers this opportunity to farmers.
But as you have also said, dear Chair, there are obstacles. Low remuneration, the absence of processing facilities nearby, or an underdeveloped supply chain are the main reasons for the unequal development of the sector across the union. For proper market development, it is important that farmers can grow this crop in a regulatory framework that is proportionate and clear. For hemp cultivation, rules, as you know, are laid down in the Common Agricultural Policy, in particular to limit risk for public health. But sometimes, member states introduce additional rules that could discourage farmers from cultivating hemp or make it harder to valorize the crop.
Our proposal for the future common market organization aims at harmonizing rules for hemp cultivation and making sure that when products are grown in accordance with those rules, products from the whole plant can be marketed. It also provides clarity on the legality of the whole plant that is grown on land for which farmers receive CAP support. We want to confirm that no illegal activities are taking place in this case. In this way, we want farmers and rural economies in all member states to benefit from bioeconomy opportunities and offer them access to this resilient and beneficial crop. Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, madam Maison. And if I may just add, the hemp is, as we call it, a sea plant like corn, one of the few plants that is able, given the fertile soil, to build enormous amounts of biomass in a very short time of growth and is relatively resilient to extreme weather events. Just to add these two points, if I may. And this leads us now to the round of coordinators, and first to EPP. Herbert Doffman, please.
Thank you. Thank.
Herbert Dorfmann
thank you very much. I think it's very interesting in recent years, and if we look at our agri committee, we have regularly had debates on hemp, and we haven't gotten that far on this matter. There's no doubt. And here, the representative of the commissioner is if the commission is quite correct, hemp is a very important plant. It provides a lot of biomass in a very short time, and it's nothing new.
Hemp has been cultivated in Europe for hundreds, even thousands of years, for these reasons. So for that reason, I think that the approach that the commission has is saying, let's address the regulations. Let's have a uniform situation. I think that's really the response because growing hemp for nutrition, for biomass, etcetera, it's always connected to drug abuse, and really these two things don't really have a lot to do with one another. So I believe that you have to have a couple support for hemp?
Well, no. I don't think so. I think you can have a if you provide a basic sound regulatory background for hemp, then the farmers will grow it. And, of course, as you pointed out, this is a very valuable crop for the bioeconomy. It provides fodder, and I think it is one of the best producing and best functioning plants.
And D, madam, please.
Thank.
Maria Grapini
thank you very much. First of all, I'd like to thank Miss Mizone for what she said. It is reassuring for us. For 36 years, I worked in the textile industry. I'm a textile engineer, and I have been fighting to protect hemp crops.
For 10 years, I was responsible for the hemp program in Romania, but the confusion was complete. We started to burn crops of hemp, and I expected you to present some calculations, Miss Mizon. This plant, this crop, is the most efficient crop. We do not waste anything from hemp. The fibers are used in the textile industry.
They are bio fibers. Now other parts go into the auto industry, the car industry, and the oil is used in medicine and cosmetics. Unfortunately, in my country, in the Eastern Europe for years on end, we have been fighting to convince the commission. Then there is a distinction between various parts of the plant to convince which part is textile and which part is toxic. And finally, I see things have been sorted out.
We need to catch up now. The proposal from the textile industry has become the commission's proposal, I see. We do need a program, however, to make the hemp crops more dynamic, because it presents so many benefits. I'm sure we will enter negotiation. We're talking about percentages here. So the percentage is 0.3% in terms of the THC content, in order to be considered an agricultural product.
Some say the percentage should be higher. It is important to decide, however, that this plant as a whole is beneficial across industry. So this topic must be treated very objectively. We hopefully will end up with a good solution, and our discussion today will contribute towards that.
Thank.
Gilles Pennelle
you. This has just been said. Hemp, as we know, is a crop that is resilient, multipurpose, and very promising, and it can play a major role in developing the bioeconomy in Europe. It's also a plant that doesn't require much in the way of inputs, and it stores carbon. France is the leading producer of hemp in the European Union, with around 25,000 hectares.
This is around 2,000 producers, and so it's a very important sector. But as we know, it does raise a number of questions. And, ultimately, we have to admit that the issue is in the marketing of hemp flowers, of course, as we know some stakeholders in favor of the legalization of certain drugs are promoting this. And so we, of course, need this harmonization while respecting the wishes of a number of states. I'd also like to point out that we don't want something that's going to be harmful to health, industrially used.
Thomas Waitz
For ECR. I see nobody who asked for the floor. So that leads us to renew. Elsie Katainen, please.
Elsi Katainen
Thank you, Chair. As we all know, hemp offers farmers strong opportunity to grow more sustainable wine while opening many versatile use possibilities. Its diverse and workable nature creates new sources of income across several sectors, like textiles, construction, biofuels, and food, for example. Because every part of the plant can be used, hemp improves resource efficiency and strengthens competitiveness, while supporting biodiversity. This is particularly relevant now as Europe places increasing emphasis on self-sufficiency and strategic autonomy.
However, development is constrained by legislative barriers and differences in regulation between different member states, which directly affect farmers. More harmonized regulation would be essential for farmers to fully benefit from the economic and sustainable growth opportunities that hemp provides. New innovations and new varieties should be incentivized in the sector as well. And I'd like to ask whether the commission intends to simplify and harmonize legislation concerning hemp cultivation across the member states? And what concrete measures does it plan to take to promote hemp cultivation in Europe?
Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, colleague Katainen. And for the Greens, madam Guarda, please.
Cristina Guarda
Thank you very much. I will speak in my mother tongue. I
Very much welcome the commission proposals here. I think the sector and the court of justice had been very clear on this for a long time, but now the legislation is following behind that all parts of the hemp plant are legal. And the sector has been clear on this for some time, but the Maloney government has been ignoring the science, criminalizing people, and bringing an entire legal production sector to its knees. But I think we should go further. Two points.
Our starting point would be 0.5% as the threshold. That's what the European Parliament had originally agreed upon in its own initiative opinion on the common agricultural policy. This will give producers the necessary flexibility to deal with fluctuations in cultivation without presenting any danger to public health. Article 75 of the CMO Regulation on Marketing Standards requires the necessary instruments to encourage growth in the sector, without a need to change the basic act. We do need a change, because this approach is vital.
The sector itself can help us with diversification of agricultural income, industrial decarbonization, and reducing dependence on imports of critical raw materials. Being anachronistic and committing this kind of economic error is just shooting ourselves in the foot and handing everything on a golden platter to our outside-EU competitors.
Luke Ming Flanagan
Thank you very much. Very important topic. And I have to say what's proposed in the new CMO is excellent news. The commission spoke about how some member states have restricted people in farming, this and that was certainly the case in Ireland, and I would be very happy to see these proposals go through. In 2023, using funds that I get from the European Parliament at the agriculture or the plowing championships, I organized an event where I brought in growers, I brought in people involved in the industry, and I brought in people involved in the cafe industry where they actually sell these flowers in drinks.
And I brought them all together so I could make it quite clear to the Irish public what was going on. We had farmers on one side of my tent who were growing hemp flowers, who were told by the Irish state that they had to destroy them. On the other side of the tent, you had a cafe which was paying €3,000 per kilo to import the same flowers which the Irish government were demanding the Irish farmers destroyed, and selling it in cafes. This new regulation, the way this regulation has been changed, will mean we'll see an end to that. We will see a situation where hemp farmers will actually be able to sell what is currently the most profitable part of their plant, rather than destroying it, burning it back into the ground, which is what was demanded from them.
Still, they are restricted and badly restricted when it comes to certainty, and everyone talked about certainty here, and the repertoire on generation renewal talked about certainty. But we certainly need certainty for the Irish hemp farmers. At the moment, only months before you are going to grow it, can you get your license. You can only get a one-year license, and you don't know whether you're going to be able to grow it again the next year. We need to take the shackles off this industry, and we need to free it to grow in the way that many people have talked about the benefits of hemp there.
There are many benefits and I would support industry in calling for the limit to be raised to 0.5, and I'd go even further, maybe many people here wouldn't, but I'd go even further. At the moment, we have the same plant, pretty much, with a lot higher THC levels being grown by growers in Germany in cannabis clubs. Billions of euros worth of cannabis or hemp, call it what you want depending on how squeamish you are, is sold all around Europe every year, much of it unregulated. There is massive potential. We talk about young farmers.
I tell you, you'd have absolutely no problem getting young farmers in Ireland in legitimizing an industry that's already there, whether that be hemp, whether that be cannabis, whatever you want to call it, marijuana, whatever your thing is.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, colleague Flanagan. And for ESN, colleague Ivan Davin, please.
Ivan David
First of all, I don't want to repeat what everybody has already said. I believe that what is really important is that if we minimize risks, if we exclude risks of abusing hemphorhidrocannabis, which, totally frankly, I mean, is not anything totally benign. Obviously, schizophrenia, depression, all kinds of psychological problems, as well as addictions, are connected with it. If we minimize that, then, okay, there is no reason or no barriers in order to use hemp for all kinds of other uses, as we know them. That for me, is the most important thing that I would like to express.
Thank you for your attention.
Thomas Waitz
And now we open the floor to catch your eye. If members still want to speak, please indicate. And we go first with Madam Walsh.
Maria Walsh
Thank you very much. Such an interesting conversation, but my question really leads to the commission and the direction of travel they'll be giving member states like my own in Ireland. I mean, if you look at the hemp production in the United States, it became legal under the 2018 farm bill. From my understanding, Kentucky and California are leading the way in areas of production of CBD oil, fiber seed, with the 34,000,000,000 industry and over 100,000 jobs. So if we're going to talk about competitiveness, this is something that certainly our farmers can look to in when we talk about diversification at a European level.
And two questions. One, around the lack of local processing infrastructure. And do you, the commission, foresee supports here in the MFF or CAP, or the direction of travel around providing the money for farmers to do that, and to apply for such? And then for member states like my own who are a bit squeamish in providing licenses for these, I know a previous colleague had spoken about it, are they providing adequate education? Because I think the lack of that is what's holding a lot of these farmers back.
Thank you.
Yeah. If you need.
who would like the
Martin Häusling
The commission's proposal is a good one. We do need to say that very few farmers will go for this. It depends on the price. I think you'd need state promotion to make sure that the economy can be promoted. This could also be used in the textile industry, hemp, you know, as an alternative.
This would be very interesting, I think, for lots of farmers. Actually, it's very good for the soil. It cleans, it improves the soil, if you will. And Herbert Doffman said this, we should be decriminalizing hemp. You know, lots of people are thinking abuse of drugs when you think of hemp.
And then hemp oil, when it goes beyond specific thresholds, you know, that it becomes hallucinogenic. You know, we need to not send the epo straightaway to deal with them. We do need to look at medicinal hemp. It does have benefits, medicinal hemp, and it really does help people given its content. So we shouldn't be criminalizing this.
So, thank.
You for that. Thank.
Thomas Waitz
you. Danke Kullige, Heisling. And, our speakers list is concluded, so nobody still raises their cards with Kullige Jansen. Please. Yes.
Tavodir Podensk.
Christiansen
Thank you. I'll be speaking Danish. Thank you to the commission. That was a good presentation. I think it's very clear that hemp has a lot of advantages as named by many of my colleagues.
I mean, you don't forbid growing barley, so you don't produce whiskey. So I think we should look at this quite seriously. Hemp is a good potential crop that could help us diversify our agricultural production. Thank you very much.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, Kolik Christiansen. And that leads us back to the commission, to them, to Madame Maison. I heard several questions. One and foremost, whether you have some calculations about also the economic potential that hemp growing would have. Harmonization, I mean, you tackled it in your presentation already of the legislation.
Incentives, very much the question also to build up the processing industry, to diminish barriers. How do we face it with CAP subsidies, education, a bit of medical was still in the room. I you might have heard more questions. This is the one I noted. So please, the floor is yours, and you have four minutes if you wish, or one or the other minutes on top if you want to answer additional questions.
Please, madam Mizon.
Maison
Many thanks, chair. My recollection matches yours, so I don't think that we will leave any question unattended. Except maybe the first one, I don't have at hand the calculations on the economic growth potential. For sure, as I said in the introductory words, it is a growing sector. So we see now both an interest.
And in terms of area, we see an increase in all the member states. I mentioned the figures related to hectares, so 38,000 hectares across the EU, most of them in France, and it is a growing sector. Maybe just to recall what most of you have also mentioned, and maybe also my welcoming your support for that commission proposal. It's not always that I am in front of you, and we can speak in one voice, so I want to underline it. It's a pleasure having one project together that we can put forward in a collective manner.
So you mentioned it as well, Chair, as well as other Honourable Members of Parliament. Indeed, hemp creates a significant amount of biomass, and it absorbs about 9 to 15 tonnes of CO2 per hectare. So this is similar to a young forest. So it's really huge. The potential is really significant.
It is adapted to most soil types, to most climatic zones. So it means that it has really a big potential across the diversity of the Union. It is resilient to drought, to heat. It protects the soil against erosion. And it requires virtually no fertilizer or plant protection products.
So it's really a crop with many good aspects. It's also extremely good at crop rotation. If you can have this short cycle, just five months for hemp, it gives no chance for wheat to grow. And also, very few pests can develop, thanks to that short cycle. So it can really make a useful break in your management of the land.
So yes, we have seen, like you, from what I take from this discussion, the need to intervene with our proposal for the next common market organization, because we had seen that there was an uneven market basis for farmers depending on in which member states they are growing hemp. So this was contrary to the single market functioning, and also not giving fair competitive conditions to all. We saw also all these sustainability attributes that I've just outlined. And it is, of course, a huge potential for the bioeconomy, but also for our environment and climate policy. And we know that the concerns around health are appropriately dealt with, with this THC level, so maximum 0.3%, that you have already in the common agricultural policy as a limit for farmers to obtain cap support for those.
So we have really seen that we have a good basis to both accompany the growth of the sector within the limits that are necessary for public health. So this is the reply also to Mrs. Cattane and asking what have we done to try to simplify and to try to give more dynamism to the hemp sector. In our CMO amending proposal, we propose harmonized rules for the production of hemp. And we are including not just hemp for fibers, but we are including the whole plant, every part of the plant.
We are including plant hemp products, seeds, whether for sowing or for other uses. So we do that both for production. It's a separate article on production. Then on marketing, separate article on marketing, and also applicable to imports, to ensure a level playing field. We are allowing for some derogations from those harmonized rules, in particular, for anything that would stay in the territory of the member states.
And then, of course, for scientific and medical purposes, where some derogations are possible. The lack of processing infrastructure is indeed one of the elements that we have identified that is one of the slowing down elements for the growth of the sector. Would we put cap money on debt? Maybe if we are talking about processing, maybe we can look into the other parts of the new budget architecture, where we can find synergies with other policies. If we want to keep it within the cap budget, but again, maybe we want to prefer to benefit from other parts of the budget.
But within the cap, of course, you can think about everything that producer organizations can do. There is also a particular article on producer organizations in the hemp sector. And all the possibilities of sectoral interventions that can help a sector organize itself, including integrating, processing, storage, etc. Adequate education. Yes, indeed.
Advisory services continue to be a cornerstone within the Common Agricultural Policy. There is a lot of innovation in research and development that is surrounding agriculture in general and hemp in particular. And it is crucial that advisory services that are available to each and every farmer also include specific knowledge on that particular crop that we are discussing today. I would keep it at that, Chair, if you agree that this is answering most of the questions. And let me again welcome the near consensus that we have in this room on this subject.
And for me, it is a good signal of our future discussions on the CMO proposal within the MFF framework. Many thanks.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, madam Mizone, for presenting the file and for answering the questions, also coming with concrete proposals. If I understood you rightly, let's educate the educators. I think this is a very important point, and I think harmonization is long overdue. I mean, we're on one market together, and we have 27 different regulations. And that's creating complications, and it's the opposite thing of simplifying things.
It's complicating things. But it's not the only sector where we have this problem. But thank you very much for giving us all your answers. And that concludes our discussion when it comes to addressing legal barriers and supporting the sustainable growth of the hemp sector. For Mr. Alvaro.
Yes. So we have four or five minutes of break. If you wanna grab a coffee, please do so, or other things. We still wait for the next presenter, mister Larrio. So we have to wait for a few minutes.
Álvaro Lario
The session is interrupted until latest 05:00. Okay, colleagues, 05:00. Let's start the session of our agreed today again, with an exchange of views with Mister Alvaro Laurio, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development on the consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the broader Middle East crisis on global food security and food systems. Following our recent exchange of views within the European Commission on the impact of the Middle East crisis and the European agricultural sector, today's discussion will allow us to deepen our understanding from a global perspective. We're pleased to welcome Mister Alvaro Laurio, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, a key partner of the European Union in advancing resilient rural economies and sustainable food systems worldwide.
Thomas Waitz
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has once again highlighted the fragility of global supply chains, with significant repercussions on fertilizer markets and food prices. IFAD's dual role as a UN agency and final institution offers a unique perspective on both immediate responses and long-term resilient strategies. This exchange is therefore both timely and essential to inform our work and to strengthen international cooperation in addressing interconnected challenges, such as the impact of rising input costs and market volatility on food security and identifying the policy responses that can best support sustainable agriculture production. Mister Larrio, welcome here in the European Parliament, and we look forward to hearing your insights. Agri Coordinators and members will have the opportunity to ask questions after your intervention.
Please, the floor is yours.
Álvaro Lario
Well, thank you very much for having us. As you said, we are a financial institution, which focuses on investing in the first kilometer. So making sure that especially in terms of building global resilient value chains around agriculture, small scale producers and making sure that also this is not, as you know, farming is a business, so it's not just subsistence farming, but actually making it as small scale producers a viable business. We just before I go directly into the Strait of Hormuz and some of the repercussions we're seeing, I would say, I was launching in London actually last week the global report on food crisis. And unfortunately, the situation is not good.
And it's going to, as we saw from the IMF, also baseline is going to get worse. Right now, just to share some numbers very quickly, we have, for the first time in a long time, two famine situations, so one in Gaza and one in Sudan, but also 66 million people who are currently in acute food insecurity. So unfortunately, we are also right now, as many of you know, in a planting season, and we will talk about some of the repercussions. So it's also going to get worse because of the current crop calendar. So many of you have seen already in Europe that fertilizer, especially nitrogen fertilizers, prices have gone up by 30%, 60%.
A lot of the components that are being sourced are coming from the Middle East, and this is only going to raise agriculture production costs over time. So, this is very different probably to the shocks that we saw during COVID as well as during the Ukraine invasion. Because actually, it is going to be a delayed from the IMF economies. We know that it will take six to 12 months to have the full repercussion. About half of the increase in fertilizer prices will be in higher food price inflation. And one of the issues we will be seeing is we already saw since COVID that food prices go up by 50%.
And for sure, they're going to continue increasing over what's remaining in the current year. So unfortunately, the situation for many of the small farmers around the world is very dire, but especially, I would say, in those developing economies, it's even worse. I mean, many of them, as in Europe, but without any absorbing shocks, have to decide right now between reducing fertilizer use, abandoning the plants or taking a further debt. And probably one of the things that we have realized over time is that what we need to invest in many of these countries is actually on trying to reduce a lot of this dependency on external input. So, it happens with fertilizers, it happens with seeds.
And the countries that are going to be most impacted are those that are obviously more import-dependent. And there's a good number that are actually even going through conflicts and crises like Sudan, which has a heavy reliance also on external inputs. So unfortunately, in that sense, we do expect over the next six to twelve months the situation only to worsen, because a lot of the impact in terms of not only the fertilizer but also the transportation cost is going to happen over time. Right now, many of the countries are using their own fertilizer reserves, but this is a reserve of three or four months. So probably in the very short term, they still can cope, but it's going to have a major repercussion for us.
This has meant working with another of their own based agencies, with the World Bank on what we can do in the short term. And in the short term, as you know, there are very limited actions that you can take. One of them is subsidizing it through vouchers, but this is very limited in time. So once more, we go back to what happens in every food crisis. We say we have to invest in resilient systems.
We have to invest in okay. For the interpreters. No problem. So, one of the things that we do believe is how can we make sure that we are actually investing in the root causes of some of the structural issues. And right now, we are working with the European Union, but also with the rest of the Rome-based agencies, with FAO, with World Food Programme, with the World Bank itself, being a financial institution, in trying to once more set up what could be those structural changes that over time can make the difference.
Actually, IFAT was born during a fertilizer and oil crisis in the '70s by many of the Middle East countries as founders. Now we have 180 member states. But we see that there's one of these food price crises every 8 to 10 years. And we are seeing that probably in terms of food price inflation, the situation is going to get worse. So probably, for us, it's very important how we work with the European Union, especially now through Global Gateway, but also through other means on trying to set up this, I would say, way of reducing those potential shocks.
As many of you know, it can be done by promoting other sustainable agricultural practices, also by reducing the, I would say, dependence on nitrogen fertilizers. Only 1% right now of the world has green fertilizers as an alternative. They are still too expensive to be affordable for small-scale farmers. But also making a mix of synthetic and organic fertilizers is another context which we are currently working on. So my main message for today is that probably the current situation is going to get worse in terms of food price inflation, that most of the food systems currently remain very structurally vulnerable, especially to the import of a lot of the inputs.
And Europe is also not insulated from these shocks. So in terms of future policy implication, it's very clear that we need to start preparing and securing before the shock happens. And this is why I think still investments in addressing a lot of these structural shocks are important, and investing in the resilience, as the speaker was mentioning, is very important to do ahead of time, as well as also the right investments, as I mentioned, sustainable agriculture practices, production of local biofertilizers, and also making this global value change resilient also for a lot of the European companies that will need to source a number of these inputs. So for us, this crisis, once more, is an opportunity to really become more resilient and also to secure some of this, I would say, sustainable value chains, and making sure that we invest in sustainable food systems. And this, once more, is an opportunity that we are seeing, like in other crises.
From our side, from IFAT, being a financial institution and investor in this first kilometer, we're happy to continue connecting a lot of the global agriculture companies in Europe with local value chains, and also to continue investing in the local value chains that will also create, I would say, the investments that increase the income of many of the rural communities that otherwise are also forced, in many cases, to migrate forcefully and only recreate the conflict situation that we see in many countries. Thank you very much.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, Mr. Lario. And sorry for interrupting you. Our microphones are a bit sensitive if you come too close. And it's getting tough for our translators.
Sorry for interrupting you. And thank you for your remarks. This leads us to our round of coordinators, approximately 2 minutes, please. First, EPP, Herbert Doffman, please.
Herbert Dorfmann
Thank you very much indeed, sir. Thanks for the presentation. You talked about supply security. Question, something we've not necessarily talked about. What about food for the Gulf States themselves?
You know, nothing's going in. Nothing's coming out of the Gulf, and there are however many million people living there. And these are also very important customers of our food industry from Europe. So what about them? Any figures?
The situation when it comes to supply security in the Gulf itself on nitrogen fertilizers. Well, we forget things very quickly. We had the same debate 4 or 5 years ago. Same situation exactly. And then everything went really well with the nitrogen fertilizer.
We got it cheaply, and now we've forgotten everything, and we're at the same point. We're not any better off than 5 years ago. Long term, though, I mean, it's basically energy fertilizers. And this fertilizer policy, well, in Europe, we are thinking about maybe starting to produce fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer. You know, sometimes you actually have to pay people to take it off your hands. Maybe you could use this to produce this as a source of energy.
So I think we need to look at how things link up. Another question. Any information? I mean, we had a long debate about fertilizer trade, new technologies, organic nitrogen composites, any progress there that would be very useful when you have this chemical mixture of fertilizers, whether all of that could be switched to organic measures. Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Should be Eric Satya Como. He's here. But then I am at the wrong seat here now.
Eric Sargiacomo
Thank you. Sorry, I'm late. Thank you very much, Thomas Feit, for chairing the session. Thank you, Mr. Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, for that presentation.
The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is a sort of Damocles not only for other continents, but for people in the Gulf itself, as Mister Dorfman has said, and for Europeans, for farmers. Fertilizer prices are a major source of concern. Global food security is at stake. There's not enough fertilizer for the next harvest. And as you have pointed out, we're not going to see it in one big hit.
It's going to come over 6 to 12 months. And that's a crisis hanging over us in terms of feeding the planet, and also in terms of political stability in many countries, the specter of famine. So we need to look at strategy in a chaotic world where one could see major disruption to flows at short notice. There was a French interview recently saying that there's a €100,000,000,000 trade deficit for Africa with food. Look at the arable land available where the agronomists are, the experts are placed on the planet.
Look at the likely flows of population we're going to see over the next few years. So, Mr. Ladio, my question would be, shouldn't we be helping Africa to have a strong agricultural policy for price stability for consumers and for producers, to encourage local production, and for WTO rules, for instance, on banning storage when it comes to fertilizers. So particularly, these bans on stockpiling, I think, are making life a lot harder for everyone.
Thank.
Gilles Pennelle
you. Well, whenever there's a crisis, it seems like everything crawls out from under a stone in the EU, and suddenly all of our weakness is exposed. Now we see weaknesses for fertilizers in Europe, Africa, and elsewhere. And finally, the issue of sovereignty raises its head. We had this globalization a few years ago.
Everyone was very gung ho about, oh, you haven't got enough of that. Just import some from somewhere else. Fine. Could be a developing country. Could be a rich country.
But now, what's happened? When you get a crisis, both types of countries suffer. And it seems like nobody's learned anything from the previous crises. Where's the EU strategy for sovereign fertilizer production? I'm still waiting.
I've been waiting for years. No sign of it yet. Perhaps the European Commissioner will be taking some initiatives over the next few days. Will they deal with the problems? Will they deal with the level of demand?
Don't hold your breath. Looking at the crisis now with the Strait of Hormuz in the European Parliament, we voted well, not we because not my group, but the carbon border adjustment mechanism was voted through by the rest of the European Parliament. That's gonna be a terrible hit for farmers. French farmers were saying that the cost of CBAM for French farmers would be the equivalent of all CAP subsidies, €7,000,000,000. So, mister Lario, you've told us about action in areas where there is a problem of food insecurity, but you can't just deal with fertilizers through using algae and fish waste, and so on.
We've got a lot of people living on less than 1 euro a day. These solutions are not going to be one size fits all. We need these industrial fertilizers. So we need to learn lessons from crises and strengthen our sovereignty.
Thomas Waitz
Merci Monsieur Penelet for ECR. Is there a speaker in the room? I don't see anyone. So that leads us to renew Elsie Katanen, please.
Elsi Katainen
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Laria, for your presentation. We are here. Yes, so we all can see that the situation in the Middle East has serious impacts. And without urgent EU action, this pressure will accumulate across the value chain, hitting farmers hardest.
Unfortunately, it is affecting not only this growing season, but also the coming growing seasons for years in the worst scenario. My big concern is that energy crisis drives Europe and world into, for example, China's arms. In Iran war, we'll accelerate the green transition, and that is, of course, a good thing, but it will also deepen our risky and dangerous dependencies to some countries. And it seems like Europe is not moving from its current dependencies. It is just changing them to another.
Commissions fertilize strategy, which parliament have asked for years and years, comes far too late and no solutions have been proposed for the acute crisis yet, but we are waiting for them. Nineteenth of this month, we will hear something. In the long term, we need more efficient nutrient recycling and alternative fertilizers. Member states should be encouraged to use their own raw materials, not prevent it. It could help rural areas as well and farmers.
And I must say that without self-sufficiency and security of supply, there is no independency either. Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, Elsie Katainen. And now for the Greens, Kordic Heisling petition.
Martin Häusling
I think we have to be clear. Mister Trump, American president, has provided us with a huge fiasco. I think it was predictable, but this is what Herbert Doffman said. We had the same problem, similar problem four, five years ago. That was Putin's attack on Ukraine, and we need to draw lessons.
You can't just change the supplier. I think you need to have your own strategy. We, in the European Union, have to have our own strategy, you know, looking at with the same methods to create our own nitrogen. Well, I think we need to do two things. We need a solution.
We need to look at how we can grow this with crops and make sure that these systems are secure. Lots of NGOs are saying that 10% of arable land in Europe should be covered with these sorts of crops. With the pulse crops. So we need to talk about these sorts of solutions. We need to be able to manufacture nitrogen here in the EU, but for that, we need different structures.
You have classical structures that do a lot of gas, and we could do a lot when it comes to reduction. I think we could bring the numbers down. But when it comes to doing things specifically, we need to look at help for the global South. You know, prices for food there are going up. They're skyrocketing.
What are we doing in Europe to help these countries in Africa, the Horn of Africa specifically? Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
And this leads us to the left and to our colleague Lupin. Flanagan, please.
Luke Ming Flanagan
Thank you very much. As many of the previous speakers have said, and maybe it suggests the penny has dropped around here that we've got to learn from past crises. And we didn't seem to learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We haven't learned from the COVID crisis, and it looks like we're not willing to learn here now. And the problem with saying we'll have no problem getting food because we're a rich continent and anything we can't get, we can import, is that we end up leaving ourselves open to blackmail.
I'm gonna say we don't seem to have learned a lesson. We're now going along signing a deal on Mercosur where one of the partners to this deal carries around a chainsaw, as a kind of a political motto, and we at the moment, we have someone in Brazil who we can trust, but only three years ago, four years ago, we had someone who, I don't know what anyone was saying about mister Bolsonaro at the time, it's quite clear he wouldn't be a good partner. So we don't seem to learn, but apparently Mercosur is going to be different. Well, it might be different in a couple of years' time, and if we continue down this road, people who produce foods such as farmers in the area that I come from will not be able to compete with such a model. They will disappear, then we'll have another crisis, then we won't have the knowledge to bring them back, then we won't have the ability to bring them back, and then we will be short of food.
And we've got to learn from this. We've got to learn that we've got to create sustainable food systems where we're not dependent on outside inputs. And yes, we can do all this agriculturally. But we wanna remember that if the European Union had not been supplying weapons to a genocidal regime in Israel with a war criminal as their leader, we would not be where we are now. And what we need to do is send out a message that if you're gonna destroy our economy, we're gonna fight back.
And what we want to do is stop trading with Israel, because we would not be in this position. Whatever about learning for the future, we wouldn't have this short-term problem that's going to turn into a fiasco if we didn't keep selling guns, bombs, and weapons to people who have proven you shouldn't even give them a stick, let alone a gun.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, colleague Flanagan. This led us a bit into the AFET arena now, but thank you. And our last coordinator in this round is Colic Ivan David, please.
Ivan David
Mr. Flanagan mentioned that we need to draw lessons from the current situation. It is true that it is no coincidence that we repeatedly talk about fertilizers as energy-intensive products. As for the Hormuz trade, of course, this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
It is a result of a not thought through act by The United States, who is often mentioned as a key political partner to the EU, although the U. S. Tend to behave in the opposite manner. This is clear and clear every day. As for the Russian aggression against Ukraine, let us remember that this came after the Maidan revolution, which also didn't happen on its own.
It was supported by the US. But I don't need to remind ourselves of that. So these were the consequences of certain causes, and the original plan didn't play out. The following steps, namely sanctions against Russian energy, this also didn't happen just on its own. Their source was the European Commission, greeted by the European Parliament.
And all these steps one after another meant, as a result, poor availability of raw materials and also fertilizers. A host production is dependent on the availability of energy and certain raw materials. So the calls for self-sufficiency, while we know what resources Europe has, this is not a realistic call. So let us come back to reality-based politics. Let us look for raw materials under conditions which are affordable for the EU. David,
Thomas Waitz
It's obvious that we're talking about a global issue here today. I have three speakers who asked for the floor. If anybody else, yes, colleague Buddha, anybody else that would ask for the floor, no. So we have the four speakers that we have. And we start with Madame Imar.
Thank.
Céline Imart
You, president. Thank you, representative of the commission. As you said, the Strait of Hormuz is a clear revelation of the extreme vulnerability of our food and agricultural systems. Despite increasing normally normal instability, stability often depends less on strategy than the goodwill of maritime routes. There's no real plan to reduce our dependency on these critical products.
There's no sufficient capacity to prevent these shocks, be it globally or in Europe. Our food security depends on these continued movements, and where the shocks are being felt by our farmers. There's an increased suspension of fertilizers. There are only half measures being taken. There are a few promising plans, but these are presented as structural when they're not. These things don't happen in press communications.
They happen over time. So my question is, what is really useful in the short time? What can the commission put in place to reduce our dependencies and prevent these skyrocketing prices? We're seeing increasing crises. Are you planning on implementing strategic reserves?
Thomas Waitz
International Fund of Agriculture Development, but we have a commission here as well. We have a commission here as well. Next speaker, it's our colleague, Frankaio Rodriguez, please. Thank you, chair. I will speak in Portuguese.
Senior president Lario.
André Franqueira Rodrigues
President, the crisis in the Middle East reveals a simple truth. There isn't really food security. With the closure of the Strait Of Hormuz, we're seeing all sorts of prices rocket that are affecting the secure supply chain. This is a global problem. And, of course, Europe can't sit back and wait.
We need strategic reserves. We need diversified supply chains. We need more resilient food systems. So I'd like to ask three questions. What concrete instruments could the European Union implement to protect small farmers and protect against inflation?
If not, this situation is going to get worse. Second question, on a global scale, how can we protect the most fragile countries? And third question, you said that these situations are cyclical as are the shocks, and we need to take lessons from these. So the question is obvious. What lessons from the past can we use to respond to the impact of these crises?
Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, colleague. Frank Eira Rodriguez. And this leads us to Mr. Christiansen, please.
Thank.
Christiansen
thank you very much. I'll be speaking Danish. We've been sleeping simply for too many years in Europe. We've gotten warnings, and we've had crises in the 70s and the 80s, and now we've had two crises in the last seven years, all in energy. And I think it can be very serious, this current situation.
Energy and fertilizer, these are absolutely crucial for our food security. Is it true that the way we actually calculate our CO2 emissions? That's also interfering with this. Of course, what happens in Denmark when the wind is blowing too much? Well, we can't get rid of all the energy we produce, overproduce.
Well, what if it's not? However, if we look, it's because there's a CO2 emission system that means we're at a disadvantage compared to, for example, China, where there's no penalty for producing CO2. So I think we have to look at that as well. Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, colleague Christensen. And our last speaker is colleague Buddha, please. Vice chair Buddha.
Daniel Buda
Thank you, chair. I come from the jury where we talked about environmental crimes. And I've been following this debate because it's very important to understand where we're at the moment, what the reality is. I'm sorry that we can't seem to be aware of the fact that the EU will face a lack of diesel for agriculture. It's affected the lack of kerosene, it's affected the aviation, and we're looking at price and quantity in prices.
And there are no measures from the European Commission now about the fertilizer. Can someone tell me why the hell we cannot produce our own fertilizers here in the EU? In Romania, have a factory that produces 2,300,000 tons of fertilizer a year. And we, of course, it's a private company, but we have this in the EU. And now we basically kill ourselves and we don't let these factories produce.
What is the European Commission doing? We have a crisis on our hands, and we have the option to produce these fertilizers at home, and we do nothing. But I'm sorry, the European Commission, the colleague was saying that we are sleepwalking. We are indeed sleeping and sleepwalking. I want a clear action plan from the European Commission to bring back into motion these factories that can bring the production back to Europe.
Thank you very much.
Thomas Waitz
Colleague Bouda, I might have overlooked Monsieur Deserle, but we still have time. So please, the floor is yours.
Just.
Jérémy Decerle
Briefly. I can hear you all deploring what's going on at the moment. But in any case, we need to acknowledge that every time there's a crisis, we have trouble anticipating it and then responding to it. I think that we do have the ability. We could ask, we can really criticize the commission as much as we want, but it's down to us to come up with ideas for producing more fertilizer, for depending less on oil, finding other solutions.
So let's not underestimate the clout of the commissioner of AGRI here. We can wait for the commission to respond, but we know that we're not going to get very much. So let's set to work and do something about it.
Thomas Waitz
So summarizing a bit the questions that I've heard, I mean, there are different ones, some going to your direction, some going towards the commission. But some questions were quite precise. I mean, how are the Gulf States doing without imports? But it's also related to the questions around Africa. I mean, there's a huge agricultural potential while they are also importing.
What are the effects on these countries long term, short term? But also questions of food sovereignty. This concept was originally developed for developing states to grant food sovereignty. Now I think it's important that we also have this debate at the European level. So what would be your global take on this?
Seabum, I think, goes very much towards the commission. But just to say, Seabum is only for imported fertilizer. So homegrown fertilizer, this is very much a question that goes to the commission. Also, how to protect fragile countries. I think it's a question in your direction, and all the questions on Vice Chair Buza diesel kerosene.
Even me as an organic farmer who works with nitrogen fixing bacteria, I'm not concerned about fertilizer prices at all, but I'm also using diesel for my tractor. So handing over to you, Monsieur, please, you have allocated five minutes. If you need one or the other minute more, that's fine. We still have a bit of time. Law is yours.
Álvaro Lario
Well, thank you very much. Thank you for the interest and very good questions. I'll try to provide a number of, let's say, global as well as specific answers. What we have been seeing, as many of you have pointed out, especially, I mean, as I started my presence in 2022, actually, that was the first meeting I attended of Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Agriculture at a global level. And usually, they meet every 10 years because there's a shock, and they come together, finance and agriculture.
So that was the first time since then. We've had a good number of shocks, which very much everybody now talks about more that that's the new normal, this type of macroeconomic and specific energy shocks. And the reality of what I'm seeing, especially talking to heads of state specifically in Africa, is that they are starting, for the first time, at least since I remember, taking food security as a matter of national security. So they are really starting to look into the food self-sufficiency, into what should they be really investing, what type of value chains, what type of crops. And the reality is, and this is, I think, for any geopolitical block, that it's not that you need to be 100% self-sufficient in everything you do, but you need to have a degree of diversification.
And that's probably the case for all value chains, for all crops, for all inputs. And I think that's probably the question that any leader needs to ask themselves: what should they be investing in? What should they be self-sufficient in? And I've seen more and more of these conversations or I've had them with heads of state. Unfortunately, in Africa, as many of you know, after a decade of 0% interest rates now, they're paying between 10-25% of their budgets in cost of their debt.
So actually, they have much less of an ability to really respond in the short term to many of these investments. So I would say there's more and more interest in what type of investments they should be. And as it has been pointed out for Africa specifically, I mean, the reality is that they are currently importing around $90,000,000,000 of U. S. Dollar every year in terms of food.
And obviously, that could create more jobs, more transformation in storage and commercialization. And they have to also have the ownership of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area. That's a big opportunity for them also to trade even regionally. So, I would say, the opportunity is there, but still it has not been taken with the right degree of ambition. In terms of The Gulf itself, as many of you pointed out, the current impact of the crisis is one on transportation costs, as many of you have pointed out.
The other one is on fuel and mechanization, the other one on fertilizer prices, but also on the import of food. The reality is that 70% of the food that is imported in the Gulf goes through the Strait of Hormuz. So, that availability of supply is not there. Some countries like Kuwait or Qatar have no availability at all. They also have reserves.
I have been when we also operate and discuss with many of them over time, they have put a big emphasis on food security, a big emphasis on water investments. So that's something that they are behind. The reality is that even for fertilizers, I mean, fertilizers is a dry or a liquid type of bulk commodity. So the type of infrastructure that you need is much more complicated than the one on just oil. So, that also complicates the fertilizer issue.
But the reality, as you were pointing out, many of them are big food importers, and 70% of that food goes to the Strait of Ormuz. So, yes, the situation is building up, and it's not very easy. Perhaps to finalize on some of the answers or what you can do, or lessons learned. The reality, as many of you have pointed out, is that we go every eight years about what type of investments you should be doing in our case, in many of the developing economies. What we are promoting, as I was mentioning, for example, is agricultural practices.
For that, you need a transition in terms of cash flows for small-scale farmers. So, it's not an easy one. It takes three or four years for them to be actually commercially viable. BO inputs type of production, mixing, as I was mentioning, partially chemical and organic. There's also reality across the different zones.
For example, in Africa, the consumption of fertilizers is around 40 to 50 kg per hectare. In South Asia, it's 200 kg per hectare. So, it's 4 times higher. So, that also gives you a little bit of the extent of the impact that this can happen, which means that the impact is also going to be massive in South Asia, if fertilizer prices continue to be there. Soil health, some of you pointed out, is also very important.
So, there's a number of things that you can prepare in order to be more resilient when the shocks happen, because the shocks will continue happening. Just you need to be the diversification of your production, the diversification of your inputs, but also the type of practices. And it's not that you go fully in one mode or not. It's just that you need to build that resilience. And many of our investments actually, that's what they are trying to provide to many of these developing economies.
Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, Mr. Larrio, for sharing your insights with us. And this leads us to the commission now, Madame Cristina Miranda. A few questions that were quite directly pointed out in your directions. What are our learnings?
What can we do short-term? What about the reality and what is the commission intending to do? Please, the floor is yours. You have allocated 4 minutes. If you need one or the other minute more, that would be fine.
Floor is yours.
Cristina MIRANDA
Thank you, chair. Honorable members, thank you for inviting the commission to contribute to this exchange of views. First of all, I would like to clarify that I represent the DG International Partnership. So most of my reactions would be from the global food security angle, but I will also tackle the various calls that you've made for a known strategy in Europe to address particularly the concerns on the availability and affordability of fertilizers. So thank you, President Lario, for your intervention.
Today's discussion comes at a timely moment. The European Commission shares the alarming assessment that president Lario has made about the current global situation with the Middle East conflict and also the war in Ukraine, together generating severe humanitarian, economic, and also food security consequences worldwide. The consequences of this conflict will last not only months, but probably years. And this will be potentially aggravated by the El Nino period, which will cause more extreme weather events and uncertain harvest yields in the next season. So the European Union is highly concerned about the impact that the conflict in The Middle East is having on energy prices and fertilizers and eventually on global food and security.
Most impacted countries would be those that are most vulnerable, that cannot afford the prices of fertilizers, and also the increased shipping costs. As president Lario has already mentioned, on April 24, at the launch of the global report on food crisis, it was noticed that the conflict in The Middle East could have as a consequence 45 million more people falling into acute food insecurity. The EU response includes short-term and long-term efforts to address the situation. First of all, the immediate efforts, the European Union is actively supporting the identification of potential diplomatic and humanitarian solutions to address the disturbances resulting from the conflict in the Middle East. We are in close contact with the UN, and we are supporting the efforts of the recently established taskforce.
We are also engaging with our partners with international organizations, and we are making use of the network of EU delegations in the world to monitor the situation, and to identify the challenges and the potential mitigation measures that we could uptake. There is a clear need for coordinated action, and we need to coordinate this particularly within G7, but also within G20 in order to address the spillover effects of this crisis. I would like to briefly outline two concrete actions that the EU is putting in place to address mostly the long term. And with this, I will also cover the calls for a strategy on fertilizers. But first of all, I wanted to refer to the concrete action of the European Union to address global food security.
The European Union is and will remain a key partner to reduce the impact of the war on global food insecurity. Despite the reduced global funding for ODA, the European Union has been and will remain the front runner in the fight against hunger. Let me give you some concrete figures that prove this. First of all, in 2025 alone, €2,100,000,000 have been disbursed to strengthen food security, resilience, and sustainable production in partner countries, both in short-term and long-term actions. In the period of 2021, 2024, the European Union and its member states have delivered as Team Europe €18,000,000,000 in response to support global food security and nutrition in partner countries.
At the March in 2025, when many partners announced this engagement, TIN Europe pledged EUR 6,500,000,000 to Nutrition and in the Nutrition and Growth Summit that was organized in March. This included EUR 3,400,000,000 coming from the European Commission, and we are delivering. Today, in May 2026, we have already provided EUR 2,700,000, which is nearly 80% of the pledge we made one year ago. And this brings me to the second action that I wanted to describe, which is how to address the call that you've made for a strategy in Europe to address the challenges on the availability and affordability of fertilizers. So the commission is working to mitigate the effects also on European farmers, citizens, and business.
And in this context, the commission will adopt on May 19 a new fertilizers action plan. This will include short-term relief measures for farmers and the industry, and also long-term structural measures to reduce dependency on imports and increase domestic production, with the aim to reinforce our strategic autonomy. This plan will also promote the decarbonization of the fertilizers industry in Europe. It will support farmers to use fertilizers more efficiently. It will promote the uptake of bio-based and low carbon fertilizers.
And finally, it will improve transparency across the supply chain. From the perspective of the international partnership DG, I wanted to underline two concrete priorities that we have immediately, which are to boost the capacity in third countries, in our partner countries, to produce more fertilizers. In this sense, particularly, we want to develop green ammonia production for fertilizers. We are already doing so in Argentina, Morocco, Namibia, using the global gateway strategy. We also want to promote, we are already doing it, but we will escalate it, promoting the uptake of diverse fertilizer types, including organic fertilizers through our ecological practices.
Before concluding, I wanted to come back to the intervention of President Lario to underline that IFAT is for the European Commission a strategic partner to implement the global gateway. It is a top priority for DGImpa to scale up the investments in the agri-food sector in partner countries, particularly in Africa, and we count on IFAT as a key ally to build up resilient agri-food systems. As President Lario has said and you, Chair, you have also pointed out, the mandate of IFAT is a very particular one. It's not only a new UN agency, it is also an international financial institution, which is the only one specialized in the agri-food sector and in the rural economy. So with this, I thank you very much, president Delario, for your change of thoughts today, and thank you also for all the intervention of your honorable members.
This is a topic that you have raised many questions that I couldn't address, but I am certain that there will be further opportunities to continue the discussion. Thank you.
Thomas Waitz
Thank you, madam Miranda, also for giving us a bit of an insight into what we can expect from the fertilizers action plan and when it will come. I think many members here are rather curious about the details already. I also thank you for answering the questions that came from the floor. One was still remaining open. How can we use electricity production that is an overflow within the European Union just to take it back into DG.
I think that's a very interesting question. I want to thank Miss Alvaro Larrio, president of the International Fund for Agriculture Development, for coming to the European Parliament and for sharing his insights and knowledge. And I want to thank all the members that participated in our discussion today, and that means we're concluding this bullet point six, which concludes our meeting. Except if there's any other business requests from members. I see nobody raising their papers.
That means that concludes our session for today. And tomorrow, at 09:00 in the morning, we start again. I think it's here in the same room, and you will find the chairs you are used to back in place. Thank you all for your trust and for being so constructive today. Have a good evening.
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