Necessary reform of European agricultural policies

Resolution 911 (1989)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 30 January 1989 (18th Sitting) (see Doc. 5983, report of the Committee on Agriculture, Rapporteur : Mr Bösch ; and Doc. 5991, opinion of the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, Rapporteur : Mr De Vicente). Text adopted by the Assembly on 30 January 1989 (18th Sitting).

Thesaurus

The Assembly,

1. Recalling its Recommendation 1049 (1987) on European Agriculture 2000 and its recent Conference ‘‘European Agriculture as an Industrial Supplier - A Way out of the Crisis ?'', in which new vistas were opened up for Europe's troubled farming sector ;

2. Welcoming recent changes in agricultural policies in Council of Europe member states, including those carried out in the European Community, going in the direction suggested in the above-mentioned recommendation ;

3. Convinced, however, that these policies must undergo further radical change in order to meet the increasingly acute necessity of reducing over-production, protecting the environment, maintaining family farming and preserving a living countryside ;

4. Believing that such change is also necessary in order to avoid the present destructive effect of European agricultural policies on agriculture in the developing world, where farmers are forced on a large scale to abandon their land because of subsidised food imports from the North,

5. Calls on Council of Europe member states to shape their future agricultural policies so as :

5.1 to encourage farmers to limit production to what markets can absorb, for example through the increased use of systems of graduated price support and a greater reliance on income aid to farmers ;

5.2 to discourage the excessive use of input factors which, although they increase yields, also endanger the environment, such as artificial fertilisers, pesticides and animal-raising methods which cause excessive concentration of natural manure ;

5.3 to prohibit in particular the use of hormones for fattening and breeding purposes ;

5.4 to seek agreement, among all Council of Europe member states, on a control and monitoring policy for the use of antibiotics for therapeutic purposes ;

5.5 to make the extent of animal production on farms conditional upon the land area used, so as to reduce over-production and permit traditional, family-type agriculture to replace ‘‘factory farming'' ;

5.6 to encourage crop rotation, as opposed to monoculture, and less intensive farming methods, especially in environmentally sensitive areas ;

5.7 to lay greater emphasis on more natural forms of animal husbandry ;

5.8 to promote more ecological land management at all levels, including research and advisory services to farmers ;

5.9 to provide farmers with supplementary means of supporting themselves and their families, for instance by producing renewable raw materials for industry and energy ;

5.10 to ensure, in food trade with the Third World, that developing countries are allowed to build up their domestic agriculture in line with the food security requirements of their populations ;

5.11 to encourage favourable conditions for long-term capital investment in agriculture in these changing times, for the benefit of future generations ;

5.12 to promote education on the conflicting issues facing agriculture, so as to assist the understanding of young people coming into agriculture.