Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-23-Speech-2-341"
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"en.20071023.26.2-341"2
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"Mr President, it is with great pleasure that I stand up and talk tonight because we are in a situation now where food security has become a real issue. For 25 years we have been in a situation where there has been plenty of food in Europe. In fact, we have been taking many decisions in agriculture, in the common agricultural policy, to restrict production in order to maintain prices and reduce the use of export subsidies and to export products on to the world markets.
Now we are facing a situation that is completely different: cereal prices have risen threefold this year; the livestock sector is having a huge problem, having seen its feed costs going up by perhaps 50% or 60%, and we are extremely concerned about this. Mr Daul, Mr Goepel and I have tabled this oral question – and we are delighted that Commissioner Fischer Boel is here tonight – because we feel we now have to look at every opportunity for getting extra feed into the European Union.
We will have to face up to the reality that there are some feeds that are derived from GM maize and GM soya which cannot come into the European Union at the moment because they are not licensed. I think we have to make sure that we look at this and that we have a system by which we can license these products. Provided they are safe, they should come in to be fed to our poultry, and to our pigs in particular, as well as to our cattle, both beef and dairy, because we need to keep a very competitive industry.
We also have to look at the situation regarding supermarkets, because – do not forget – not only are we concerned at the price that the farmer receives for his or her products, but we are also interested in what the consumer has to pay. There is no doubt that we are seeing, for instance, that only 10% of a loaf of bread is actually made from the raw material of wheat and yet there are huge increases in the price of the loaf because the supermarkets say they are having to pay so much more for wheat. So we need to put pressure on the supermarkets to make sure that consumers are paying the right price.
It is great that it puts European agriculture in a very strong position to face up to the brave new world, because we will need food production, we will need farmers and we need the countryside, and all these things work very well.
But, as I say, we now have to get the balance right between the cereal and livestock sectors, and that is why we have tabled this question. We shall be delighted to hear what Commissioner Fischer Boel has to say about it."@en1
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