Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-05-Speech-4-017"
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"en.20020905.1.4-017"2
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"Mr President, for the public, health and healthy food are the top priority. But how am I as a consumer to know if a particular food is healthy? Just looking certainly is not enough. An apple with wormholes in it can be far healthier than a shiny, beautifully round apple. The agricultural sector – and this does not just apply to Austria – professes to observe the principles of food safety, traceability and hygiene.
For me, this debate is an opportunity to champion the cause of small farms, because it is always in the big, industrialised concerns, which really have very little in common with farms, that scandals occur. Nevertheless, small farms are still at the mercy of animal feed producers and vets who can prescribe all sorts of hormones and other drugs.
One thing is certain: the controls have not worked. You can, of course, turn things round however you want and say, yes, we just need even stricter rules. But if we are not even enforcing the existing rules, how are we going to cope with even stricter ones? It will not help at all. Whatever legislation we enact will remain a paper tiger if we do not enforce it. As I see it, controlling the enforcers should be a job for the Commission. You cannot just turn your back on this problem. Cheap food may be good for winning the next election, but it is not good for public health, and I think the public knows that too.
I would like to stress once more that strict rules and regulations and comprehensive documentation of controls are certainly important for big companies. But it would be pointless to harass small family farms with this. To be quite specific, very small food-processing companies need more information and motivation and less bureaucracy and documentation. There is no denying that not only is preventing food crises extremely important for the future of farmers, it is also highly important for the future of public health in the European Union. I believe, Commissioner, that we have not yet found the right way of achieving this."@en1
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