Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-01-19-Speech-4-094-000"
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"en.20120119.5.4-094-000"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first, I would like to thank the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their cooperation during the drafting of this report.
With this report, the European Parliament has done its part. Now we hope that the Commission will address this work by putting an effective strategy in train. Above all, we hope that swift action will be taken to declare 2014 the European Year against Food Waste; this would be a tangible sign of the institution’s true, strong and immediate commitment in this area.
This would give an immediate signal to all citizens that the European Union is able to be at the forefront in establishing a fairer and balanced development model.
This fruitful collaboration meant that we were able, swiftly and almost unanimously, to approve a text on an issue, that of the waste of food, which has, for too long, been underestimated by the institutions and by policy. We can no longer permit ourselves to underestimate it.
All the most authoritative specialist sources now say that one of the main problems in the immediate future will be to tackle the new and extremely high demand for food and that therefore, the issue of food security has become one of the most difficult problems to tackle because, in the future, the demand for food will tend to exceed supply. If this is true, we can no longer allow ourselves to remain passive in the face of food waste. When we talk of food, we are talking of food that is still perfectly edible, and so this issue has become a large-scale problem which is no longer sustainable.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that a third of food produced every year in the world that is intended for human consumption is wasted, and in Europe, the figure is already 50%, with every citizen on average wasting 105 kilograms per year. We have reached such a level, in fact, that we have to say that we are faced not only with an ethical problem, but with a real economic and social issue, with enormous implications for the environment.
That is why, through this report, we want combating food waste to become a priority on the European Union’s policy agenda. We are therefore asking for the Commission to lead the 27 Member States in adopting a common strategy that can foster a real step change to reduce food waste significantly by 2025.
We therefore ask that all the associations, volunteer groups and initiative-taking centres that have produced specific projects in this area in various countries should be turned to good account. These experiences have generated a virtuous system which has guaranteed significant recovery of products to be sent to those sections of the population that are experiencing financial difficulties.
I would like to remind you that in Europe, wealthy Europe, nearly 70 million citizens live under the poverty threshold and suffer from malnutrition. We are therefore asking for precise directives from the Commission.
Specifically, it would be important to amend the regulations on public procurement for catering services in canteens and hospitals so that, when they are being considered, priority is given, other terms being equal, to those enterprises that have a management model established on combating food waste. On this aspect, I would like to point out that the important fact is that the first to set an example should be the European institutions, starting with this Parliament.
Finally, we are calling for all stakeholders in the agri-food industry to take responsibility. A real awareness-raising campaign needs to be conducted, targeted firstly at the large farmers’ organisations, the world of industry, schools and universities, which can produce a civil and scientific culture oriented towards a more restrained and environmentally sustainable model of consumption."@en1
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