The European Parliament adopted by 507 votes to 112,
with 27 abstentions, a resolution on the current situation and
future prospects for the sheep and goat sectors in the
EU.
Members recalled that sheep and goat farming are
low-profit sectors in most of the EU, with incomes among the lowest
in the EU, chiefly as a result of high operating and regulatory
costs. Imbalances in the food chain aggravate the vulnerability of
these sectors and the Commission has so far failed to take the
necessary regulatory action, called for by Parliament, in this
regard.
The sheep and goat sectors account for 3 % of European
milk and 9 % of European cheese production, and together they
employ 1.5 million people in the European Union.
Brexit could cause significant changes
to intra-EU trade in sheep meat, given that the
UK is the largest producer and the main gateway for imports from
third countries.
Parliament addressed a number of recommendations to
the Commission and the Member States:
Better support:
- maintain or increase voluntary coupled aid for
sheep and goat farming and other respective measures targeted at
both sectors, with differentiated subsidies for grazing herds, in
the forthcoming reform of the CAP;
- extend agri-environmental payments to pastures
used for sheep and goat grazing and support farmers who provide
enhanced animal welfare;
- consider offering incentives to farmers who practice
transhumance;
- further assist young farmers through incentives
for the setting up or taking over of sheep and goat holdings, via
both direct aid and rural development policy;
- take measures to step up support for the keeping of
native sheep and goat breed;
- develop specific programmes enabling women to find
their place in these sectors.
Promotion and innovation:
- step up support for research into innovative
production methods and technologies with the aim of
strengthening the competitiveness of the sheep and goat sectors,
and promoting meat, dairy and wool products in the internal
market;
- encourage more regular consumption through
information campaigns on cooking and preparation methods and
coordinate promotional campaigns for PGI and PDO labelling of sheep
and goat products;
- support the exploitation of the high potential of
traditional sheep and goat farming practices through
agri-tourism.
Good practices and improving markets:
- set up an online platform focused on the sheep
and goat sectors with the main purpose of exchanging relevant good
practices and data from the Member States;
- draft guidelines for good practices for
marketing products from the sheep and goat sectors that can then be
shared among the Member States and with professional
organisations;
- bring forward proposals on price transparency
in the sectors in order to provide consumers and producers with
information to on product prices;
- foster a climate of direct sales by producers
and producer organisations in order to limit artificial price
increases;
- ease the administrative requirements for opening small
cheese-making ventures on sheep and goat farms, thereby enabling
farmers to boost the added value of their farms;
- consider additional tools and instruments that can
help the sectors face crises, meet global
challenges.
Brexit and trade agreements:
- ascertain what the post-Brexit sheep meat market will
look like, and to put necessary measures in place to prevent severe
market disturbances, including the establishment of a more
efficient safety net for prices and markets in order to protect the
sector from the impact of Brexit;
- introduce a mandatory EU labelling regulation
system for sheep meat products, possibly with an EU-wide logo,
to allow consumers to distinguish between EU products and those
from third countries;
- provide assistance in opening export markets for EU
sheep meat and offal in countries where unnecessary restrictions
currently apply.
Health aspects:
- provide incentives and support for sheep and goat
farmers who can demonstrate that they have attained high
vaccination coverage among their animals, in keeping with the
European One Health Action Plan against Antimicrobial Resistance
(AMR), as there would otherwise be little market incentive for
farmers to do so;
- improve its ability to respond to outbreaks of
animal diseases, such as bluetongue, by means of a new EU
animal health strategy, research funding, compensation for losses,
advances on payments, etc.;
- facilitate the use of immunoprecise vaccines as
a first measure to combat possible disease outbreaks in the
sectors.
Members supported a review of the relevant annexes of
the Habitats Directive with the aim of controlling and managing the
spread of predators in certain grazing areas. Lastly, they
called on the Commission to identify support measures for the
establishment of slaughter points and the simplification of
authorisation procedures.