ICMSA urges commissioner to ban below-cost selling of food
The president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) Denis Drennan has urged the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, Christophe Hansen to ban below-cost selling of food.
The farm organisation met with the new commissioner during his first visit to Ireland yesterday (Thursday, January 23).
Denis Drennan welcomed the "positive comments" made by Commissioner Hansen since his appointment, particularly on the need to work collaboratively in a manner that focused on farm incomes.
The ICMSA president said that farmers would await “with much interest and anticipation” the publication of the commissioner’s plan for the agriculture sector.
Drennan said the plan has to move past "the usual well-worn expressions of understanding and sympathy into real action and policy that would address the twin problems of increasing farmer margin and incomes, while lowering the regulatory burden and costs".
“It’s been obvious for a very long time now that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) alone cannot deliver these objectives and EU farm policy must focus on delivering improved returns from the marketplace for farmers.
"I was hugely encouraged to hear Commissioner Hansen saying unambiguously that he intended putting economic and social sustainability of farmers on a parity with environmental sustainability.
"The elevation of environmental sustainability over everything else has proved unworkable and has resulted in the farmers paying everyone else’s environmental costs in the transition to lower emissions food production," he said.
The ICMSA president said that the EU actions on unfair trading practices (UTPs) have to date not delivered for ordinary farmers and focusing on producer organisations (POs) and other mechanisms will not solve the problems.
“The very first thing Commissioner Hansen should do – both as an end-in-itself and as a signal about the change in policy direction - is to ban ‘below cost’ selling across the EU.
"Everyone knows farmers’ costs and revenues, but the rest of the food supply chain is allowed retreat behind ‘commercially sensitive information’ and refuse to divulge their own margins.
"The commissioner needs to put a stop to this and ensure that the farmers doing 99% of the work in producing the food get a proportionate margin," he said.
On regulation, Drennan said that he remains concerned that the Strategic Dialogue on Agriculture will lead to further regulation on farming and he told the commissioner very clearly that this cannot happen.
“The EU needs to move away from the discredited and cumbersome regulatory model to a model of collaboration with farmers that addresses issues of concern.
"The regulatory burden on farmers is, bluntly, ridiculous and the EU needs to start eliminating regulations that are no longer necessary, if they ever were, and start working with farmers to develop a sustainable future.
"It’s time to move past expressions of understanding and sympathy and into concrete measures that will help turn the situation around," the ICMSA president said.
