Interview with MEP Paolo De Castro on the impacts of COVID-19 on food and agriculture

Mr Paolo De Castro is a Member of the European Parliament, Member of the European Parliament’s Committee of Agriculture and Rural Development and Member of the European Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition. The European Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition brings together 28 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from different nationalities, political groups and parliamentary committees. Membership is open to all Members dedicated to achieving a world without hunger.

You are not only a Member of the European Parliament and its Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development, but also a professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Bologna. Could you tell us a bit more about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food and agriculture?

The COVID-19 pandemic is already affecting the food and agriculture sector with an extremely worrying impact in the short and long term. The major urgent matters identified are the delays on the cross-border flows of agriculture goods, the halt to the free movement of seasonal workers that might have consequences on agricultural production, thus affecting market prices globally, the closure of crucial market outlets such as in the food and hospitality industry, whose economic sustainability is seriously jeopardised. This is why the European Union has to act unanimously and immediately in order to provide a joint response to this challenge, the largest since the second World War.

Across the globe, many people will be affected by the crisis, smallholder farmers, fishermen, breeders, struggling when they cannot sell their products or lose their harvest, employees and workers, including in the informal sector along the entire food value chain are afraid of losing their jobs and incomes. Which support can the European Union offer to them?

Urgent and concrete actions are needed to allow the sector to continue functioning in the face of this unprecedented crisis, safeguarding EU food security and particularly ensuring access to food, also for the most deprived people. EU must protect the social and economic sustainability of the agri-food sector providing measures and aid to tackle the current difficulties and those that may arise in the coming weeks. An urgent strategy is needed, which must include not only the full range of interventions available under CMO regulation, such as private storage aid, but also using unspent rural development funds, flexibility between direct payments and rural development funds, activation of emergency credit lines for farmers, ad-hoc liquidity injections for at-risk farmers, livestock producers and cooperatives, while protecting workers and preventing labour shortages which risk disrupting the entire supply chain.

What is the EU doing to ensure the necessary movement of goods and workers between countries, more particularly in the food and agriculture sector and to support its Member states? What role can Parliamentarians and the Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and malnutrition play in this regard?

The European Commission reacted promptly by publishing the “Guidelines for border management measures to protect health and ensure the availability of goods and essential services” and the “Guidelines concerning the exercise of the free movement of workers during COVID-19 outbreak”, and granting farmers a one-month extension for submitting their application for support under the Common Agriculture Policy. However, at this stage, more initiatives are needed and this is why the AGRI Committee calls for fresh funds to ensure safe workplaces and protect workers from the COVID-19 biohazard: the health of all the workers in the food supply chain should be guaranteed at all times, to avoid any labour shortage.
During this health crisis, the role of the Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition, which is composed of Members from different Committees, political parties, Member countries, gender balance is to continue to raise awareness on the difficulties that food and agriculture are facing in the whole world and to call for common urgent commitments to allow the sector to provide the continuing flow of goods and essential services, not only in the interest of our citizens’ health, but also to avoid social unrest, in the EU as elsewhere.

Can you talk a bit about the ongoing files in the Agriculture Committee and how will this work be affected by the current crisis?

The Agriculture and Rural Development Committee is carrying on its work remotely on the most important files and taking actions in order to ensure farmers all necessary support measures to face this emergency. Farmers are on the front line to maintain the food supply to citizens across Europe, thus ensuring EU food security in these challenging times and they are waiting for decisive and effective actions from our side to alleviate the impact of this crisis. We, from the Commission, to the Parliament, to Member States, have to do our best not to let them down!