Commissioner: EU’s sustainable food strategy ‘on pause’, but not forgotten

 

The war in Ukraine has “pressed the pause button” on the EU’s flagship food policy, the Farm to Fork strategy, but the long term ambition for the sector remains unchanged, according to the EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides.

“We press the pause button without changing the level of ambition of the Farm to Fork strategy,” the Commissioner said while addressing concerns from lawmakers in the European Parliament’s agriculture committee on Thursday (31 March).

This pause is necessary to ensure that food security is “guaranteed for the European neighbourhood,” she said, adding that Russia’s “atrocious invasion of Ukraine has brought the question of food security to the very top of our political agenda”.

Between skyrocketing food prices and shortages of key inputs, such as fuel and fertiliser, the war has sent the EU agrifood sector reeling. (...)