Today in COM AGRI, a very large majority of MEPs approved MEP Carmen Avram’s (S&D, RO) report on the implementation of the school scheme for fruit, vegetables, milk and dairy products despite various persistent doubts. This European programme has been in place for some years now and has proved useful in many ways. Copa and Cogeca along with EDA, therefore, welcome its continuation but remain vigilant about its potential instrumentalisation.
Since 2017, through this scheme, European students have enjoyed high quality, nutritious and heathy products at schools, while improving their knowledge and experience about food thanks to the educational measures. These are some of the reasons why the report on the implementation of this scheme approved today by COM AGRI has enabled the programme to continue to take root as one of the EU’s flagship policies.
The EU farming community strongly welcome the call to increase the budget and more specifically, to strengthen the educational measures. Tackling obesity and different illnesses related to bad food habits is a key component of prevention. Therefore, the coverage of the scheme should be enlarged as much as possible and supported by a robust European budget.
We welcome the holistic approach suggested by COM AGRI to reduce the gap “from the farm to the school”. Not only students and teachers should be involved, but also the farming community should have a role to play. As farmers can best show how our food is produced in the EU while explaining the standards that we enforce.
However, to remain credible, this programme must remain factual and avoid being a gateway to ideology, which was not made perfectly clear with this vote. Beside reiterating that there should not be any discrimination between organic and conventional, we oppose any nebulous wording where plant-based drinks would find an escamotage and access to the scheme. Besides being mainly produced with non-European inputs (against the principle of “short supply chain”), these products are not substitutes for dairy products. Studies have demonstrated that plant-based drinks are not comparable in any way, in terms of nutrition, to dairy products.
In the same way, we call on MEPs in plenary for clarification on the introducing in the text of unclear references to ethical considerations. We wonder how we should assess these criteria and what kind of impacts these provisions will have. Copa and Cogeca and EDA hope MEPs will manage to improve these few points ahead of the plenary vote to boost the potential of this scheme.
Artigo publicado originalmente em Copa Cogeca.
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