Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-22-Speech-1-118"
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"en.20071022.14.1-118"2
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"Mr President, when I walk out of my village I am in the middle of a unique agricultural area, the green heart between big cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. It is still green farming land at the moment, but the 10-metre buffer zone proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety would make it virtually impossible to farm in the area, when it is specifically farming that keeps the area green.
Last week I put it to the test, but I was hardly able to find any pieces of land between the many ditches that were 20 metres wide. Anyone who knows a bit about the Netherlands knows that it is not only in the green heart that this is true. It is a characteristic of Dutch farming that there are many ditches between pastureland. That means that, with 10-metre buffer zones, the Netherlands would lose 800 000 hectares of its farmland, 35% of agricultural area.
I am therefore asking Members not to support this proposal, also in view of the agricultural production that is necessary in Europe and the world, as the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has said. That does not actually mean that I do not agree with the aim of protecting nature and public health. We all share that ambition. I just think it can be better achieved with an approach based on risk analysis and risk reduction.
The alternative, reducing use, certainly sounds nice and simple – a 20% reduction overall – but it does not provide the best protection for the consumer because it can be looked at only in terms of quantities and not the final effect, the final risk. In that context, I actually find it difficult to understand the painful contortions of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, which is in favour of a 20% overall reduction as well as a risk approach.
I have two final points. All I will say about the licensing system is that three climate zones are preferable to 27 Member States, obviously taking national circumstances into account. Finally, I would ask the Commission not to overlook minor crops in all these major areas of dispute."@en1
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