Ukraine war: The use of our agricultural resources must be questioned!
Commenting on the Ukraine war and its impact on agricultural markets, Martin Häusling, spokesperson on agricultural policy of the Green/EFA group in the European Parliament and member of the Environment Committee, comments:
„"The Ukraine war shows how dependent many countries are on agricultural commodities from Russia and Ukraine - especially on grain. This dependency also affects Europe. It is obvious that Europe must immediately become independent from Russian agricultural supplies. Furthermore, Europe has to take responsibility towards other regions in the world such as East Africa and the Middle East. Regions, which are much more dependent on Russia and Ukraine as we are. Egypt for instance receives 80% of its wheat supplies from these two countries. It is without a doubt that the war in Ukraine and the resulting food crises will affect the political stability in those regions. The European Union should therefore grant access to its own reserves. We need to stand together in solidarity against Russia and this should be "the order of the day”.
However, it is also urgent that we challenge the use of where our agricultural commodities like grain are predominantly used in the food chain. It is not acceptable that intensive meat production continues to devour a large part of the grain harvest; this has always been neither economically nor ecologically sustainable and has to be challenged.
If Agriculture Commissioner Wojciechowski is willing to adopt the agricultural lobby's argumentation and questions the important agricultural transformation of the EU's farm-to-fork strategy within the framework of the Green Deal due to the war against Ukraine, I can only consider this logic as completely absurd. The first priority must be now to question our inefficient use of resources. This concerns the use of fertiliser as well as the use of vulnerable recourses as animal feed.
The fundamental ground for food security are fertile soil, biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. If representatives of the agricultural industry now claim that we can no longer afford such “frippery”, this argumentation is simply irresponsible - especially in matters of food security."
