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European Coordination Via Campesina

ECVC

European Coordination Via Campesina represents small and medium-scale farmers to promote sustainable peasant agriculture.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Per Clausen (Member of the European Parliament)

4 Feb 2026 · Meeting on GMO-techniques and seeds

Meeting with Catherine Geslain-Laneelle (Director Agriculture and Rural Development) and

28 Jan 2026 · Exchange of views on the reform of the Common Agriculture

Meeting with Cristina Guarda (Member of the European Parliament)

23 Jan 2026 · Agriculture

Meeting with Lynn Boylan (Member of the European Parliament)

10 Dec 2025 · EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement

Meeting with David Cormand (Member of the European Parliament)

20 Nov 2025 · MFF, CAP

Meeting with David Cormand (Member of the European Parliament) and European farmers and

19 Nov 2025 · Event: "This Land Is Our Land: Generational Renewal and Access to Land in Europe"

Meeting with Anna Strolenberg (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur for opinion)

7 Nov 2025 · Women's entrepreneurship in rural areas

Meeting with Pietro Fiocchi (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

16 Oct 2025 · NGTs

Meeting with Silvia Sardone (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

2 Oct 2025 · NGT

ECVC demands land reform to support young European farmers

14 Jul 2025
Topic — The European Commission is developing a strategy to attract young people to farming.
Message — The organization calls for a European Land Directive to guarantee long-term access for young people. They want a ban on buying agricultural products below production costs. They also demand capping subsidies to stop favoring large industrial structures.123
Why — Small-scale farmers would receive more funding by ending subsidies for large landowners.45
Impact — Large agribusinesses and speculative investment funds would lose their dominant land access.67
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Meeting with David Cormand (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

3 Jul 2025 · Livestock

Meeting with Martin Häusling (Member of the European Parliament) and KWS SAAT SE Co. KGaA

25 Jun 2025 · Veranstaltung zu NGT und Patenten

Meeting with Petr Lapka (Head of Unit Agriculture and Rural Development)

5 Jun 2025 · Exchange of views on the next amendment of the French CAP plan, and the most recent simplification package

Meeting with Claudia Olazabal (Head of Unit Environment)

5 Jun 2025 · Exchange of views on issues linking agriculture and water and on the next Common Agriculture Policy

Meeting with Brigitte Misonne (Acting Director Agriculture and Rural Development)

5 Jun 2025 · Exchange of views on the EU Vision for Agriculture and Food, in particular the livestock workstream with Confédération Paysanne, French member of European Coordination Via Campesina

Response to Communication on the EU Stockpiling Strategy

30 Apr 2025

Please find ECVC contributions attached
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Meeting with Fabien Santini (Head of Unit Agriculture and Rural Development) and European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions and European Milk Board

26 Mar 2025 · UTP directive and CMO regulation

Meeting with Jessika Roswall (Commissioner) and

25 Mar 2025 · Roundtable “Water, Agriculture, and the Food Supply Chain”

Meeting with Maria Gafo Gomez-Zamalloa (Acting Head of Unit Agriculture and Rural Development)

14 Mar 2025 · Exchange of views on the Vision for Agriculture and Food

Meeting with Christophe Hansen (Commissioner) and

27 Feb 2025 · Challenges faced by the agrifood sector in France and work of the Confédération Paysanne

Meeting with Mounir Satouri (Member of the European Parliament, Committee chair)

19 Feb 2025 · Droits des paysans

Meeting with Wolfgang Burtscher (Director-General Agriculture and Rural Development)

13 Nov 2024 · exchange on the position of farmers in the food value chain, EU food sovereignty and food security, and the upcoming Vision for the Future of EU Food and Farming

Meeting with Christine Singer (Member of the European Parliament)

13 Nov 2024 · Austausch neue Legislaturperiode

Meeting with Carola Rackete (Member of the European Parliament)

13 Nov 2024 · Mercosur protests

Meeting with Eric Sargiacomo (Member of the European Parliament)

7 Nov 2024 · Agriculture paysanne

Meeting with Peter Van Kemseke (Cabinet of President Ursula von der Leyen)

24 Oct 2024 · future on agriculture

Meeting with Cristina Guarda (Member of the European Parliament)

17 Oct 2024 · Agricolture

Meeting with Benoit Cassart (Member of the European Parliament)

16 Oct 2024 · Prise de contact

Meeting with Arash Saeidi (Member of the European Parliament)

2 Oct 2024 · audition agriculture de demain

Meeting with Cristina Guarda (Member of the European Parliament)

20 Sept 2024 · Agriculture

Meeting with Carola Rackete (Member of the European Parliament)

24 Jul 2024 · Food sovereignty, agricultural policy, possible intergroup

Meeting with Eric Sargiacomo (Member of the European Parliament)

23 Jul 2024 · Tous sujets AGRI

Meeting with Ursula von der Leyen (President) and International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements EU Regional Group

26 Apr 2024 · Meeting with President IFOAM, Director IFOAM, Member of the Coordinating Committee ECVC, Policy Officers ECVC/ IFOAM

Meeting with Janusz Wojciechowski (Commissioner) and

1 Feb 2024 · Raisons de la manifestation de la grève des agriculteurs du 1/2/2024

Meeting with Martin Häusling (Member of the European Parliament)

11 Jan 2024 · Demo gegen NGT

Meeting with Martin Häusling (Member of the European Parliament) and ARCHE NOAH, Gesellschaft für die Erhaltung der Kulturpflanzenvielfalt und ihre Entwicklung and ARTEMISIA

28 Nov 2023 · Filmvorstellung "Seeds of Europe"

Meeting with Irène Tolleret (Member of the European Parliament) and Groupe Limagrain

15 Nov 2023 · Semences

Meeting with Maroš Šefčovič (Executive Vice-President)

7 Nov 2023 · Transition towards sustainable food systems

Meeting with Christophe Clergeau (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and Greenpeace European Unit and

26 Oct 2023 · Table ronde avec les représentants de la société civile sur la proposition de règlement sur les nouveaux OGM

Meeting with Isabel Carvalhais (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

25 Oct 2023 · Production and marketing of plant reproductive material in the Union

Meeting with Maria Noichl (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur for opinion)

4 Oct 2023 · Soil health

Meeting with Martin Hojsík (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and European Environmental Bureau and

28 Sept 2023 · Soil Health Law

Meeting with Jérémy Decerle (Member of the European Parliament)

27 Sept 2023 · Nouvelles techniques géomiques, législation sur la commercialisation des sémences, OGM

Meeting with Herbert Dorfmann (Member of the European Parliament)

21 Sept 2023 · Access to land, generational renewal and land regulation

Meeting with Christophe Clergeau (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

7 Sept 2023 · Semences et nouveaux OGMs

Meeting with Sarah Wiener (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

7 Jul 2023 · agricultural policy, Green Deal, SUR

Meeting with Martin Häusling (Member of the European Parliament) and Corporate Europe Observatory and

6 Jul 2023 · Teilnahme Veranstaltung zu Patenten und Neuer Gentechnik

Meeting with Anne Sander (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

5 Jul 2023 · Generational renewal in the EU farms of the future

Meeting with Roberto Reig Rodrigo (Cabinet of Commissioner Stella Kyriakides) and Greenpeace European Unit and

27 Jun 2023 · New Genomic Techiniques.

Meeting with Kurt Vandenberghe (Director-General Climate Action) and European farmers and

27 Jun 2023 · Fit for 55

Meeting with Frans Timmermans (Executive Vice-President) and Greenpeace European Unit and

27 Jun 2023 · New genomic techniques

Meeting with Lukas Visek (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

8 Jun 2023 · Soil health

Response to Carbon Removal Certification

23 Mar 2023

ECVC does not welcome positively the current CRCF proposal as it ignores serious concerns it addressed to the EC: https://lstu.fr/letter-cf-ecvc Here ECVC will focus on elements related to land and agriculture. The recent release of the IPCC report was an alarming reminder of the climate change crises we face. But, the content of CRCF proposal will be, simply put, ineffective in addressing the scale of the challenges ahead. This said, agriculture has a huge role to play in tackling climate change and a transition towards agroecology is essential, because of its low use of fossil fuel, of healthy soils that keep humus in the ground and an animal production that is linked to local fodder production. ECVC asserts that this proposal and the logic of carbon removals certification, does not enable a transition but rather maintains the current status quo, making humanity lose precious time in addressing the climate crises. AGRICULTURE MUST BE KEPT OUT OF THE CRCF 1° Land-based carbon crediting is pointless - Scientific reports demonstrate that agricultural practices to keep carbon in the soil (or biogenic carbon pools) cannot be considered a long-term viable solution. Biogenic carbon pools are vulnerable to humans (e.g. tillage, change of agri practices, etc.) or natural disturbances (e.g. fires, droughts, flood, etc. ) and they can easily turn into sources of carbon over time. - Temporary nature-based sequestration is not interchangeable with and cannot compensate for fossil emissions that stay in the atmosphere and contribute to warming for thousands of years. - There are technical and logistical challenges of accurately calculating the amount of carbon removed in particular from land-based projects. 2° Social impacts are not considered - One specific example of the fact that social aspects are not taken into account is the blatant confusion between the different kinds of operators. In Article 2(1.d) farmers whose first activity is to make food are lumped in with professional whose first and sole activity is to capture carbon via engineering technics. - There is no safeguards against land grabbing even though ECVC has alarmed the EC on this issue on multiple occasions. There is no consideration of impacts on land speculation, rising land prices and the effects for land accessibility, especially for youth, although an agricultural transition is impossible without them. - Carbon farming is by no means a safe business model for farmers (cf: https://lstu.fr/cf-publi ) Payments for carbon credits based on land increases the risk of becoming dependent on an unstable source of income, linked to speculative markets. It is dangerous both for farmers and the continuity of food production. 3° Considering emissions reduction as a removal is wrong - It goes against climate science. Although they should be the priority of the EU, Emission reductions do not reduce the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere they can in no scenario counterbalance ongoing and future emissions. 4° There are high risks of greenwashing or corporate abuse given the lack of limits on how carbon removal certificates can be issued. - In the light of the recent erroneous carbon credit allocation by private certifier Verra, but also of French experience label bas carbone where the mechanisms of delegating certification to the private sector raises concern, the EC cannot fail to clarify the public control mechanism of any certification. - It would be inefficient,e.g for a company to buy removal credits to claim climate neutrality without reducing emissions. - The proposal must ban carbon offset credits from the scope of the CRCF. 5° Because agriculture must play its role, the EC must urgently start the implementation of 13 actions detailed in ECVC Manifesto for agricultural transition to address systemic climate crises (attached to this reply) as a road map to ensure both carbon removal and direct emission reduction.
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Meeting with Chris Macmanus (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

22 Mar 2023 · Generational Renewal on EU farms

Meeting with Janusz Wojciechowski (Commissioner) and

7 Mar 2023 · - Agroecology, short supply chains, sustainable food systems - A land directive for the EU - Prices, markets, food sovereignty

Meeting with Martin Häusling (Member of the European Parliament) and ARCHE NOAH, Gesellschaft für die Erhaltung der Kulturpflanzenvielfalt und ihre Entwicklung

8 Feb 2023 · Veranstaltung EU-Reform der Vermarktungsregeln für Saatgut: Welches Saatgut für einen gerechten Übergang zu agrarökologischen und nachhaltigen Lebensmittelsystemen?

Meeting with Maria Noichl (Member of the European Parliament)

8 Feb 2023 · upcoming sustainable food system law

Meeting with Martin Häusling (Member of the European Parliament) and Friends of the Earth Europe and

7 Feb 2023 · Übergabe der Petition “Keep New GMOs regulated and labelled!”

Meeting with Martin Häusling (Member of the European Parliament) and Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut, Bundesforschungsinstitut für Ländliche Räume, Wald und Fischerei

7 Feb 2023 · Konferenz "Carbon Farming - Neues Potenzial für Landwirte oder Greenwashing?"

Meeting with Annukka Ojala (Cabinet of Commissioner Stella Kyriakides) and Eurocities and

16 Dec 2022 · VTC Meeting: Sustainable Food Systems/Procurement

Meeting with Wolfgang Burtscher (Director-General Agriculture and Rural Development) and European Milk Board

27 Oct 2022 · Exchange of views on food security

Meeting with Isabel Carvalhais (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

13 Oct 2022 · Land concentration, access to land, land regulation

ECVC urges 80% pesticide reduction and support for peasant agroecology

19 Sept 2022
Topic — The Commission is reviewing rules to reduce pesticide risks and promote alternative approaches.
Message — ECVC demands an 80% pesticide reduction target by 2030 and a full phase-out by 2035. They want the EU to prioritize peasant agroecology and natural preparations over industry-led high-tech solutions.12
Why — Small-scale farmers would break their dependency on chemical inputs and receive more public funding.34
Impact — The pesticide industry would lose export profits and be banned from advising farmers.56
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Meeting with Pascal Durand (Member of the European Parliament)

22 Jun 2022 · New genomic techniques potential deregulation and consequences for farmers

Peasant farmer group ECVC demands human-rights based forest monitoring

6 May 2022
Topic — The EU is establishing a framework for monitoring and strategic forest planning.
Message — Monitoring must include human rights indicators and involve local communities in data collection. Data must be transparent, open-source, and address gender gaps and tenure rights.12
Why — This would protect small-scale farmers' land rights and prevent industrial exploitation.34
Impact — Industrial forestry companies would face increased oversight and restrictions on forest management.5
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Meeting with Roberto Reig Rodrigo (Cabinet of Commissioner Stella Kyriakides) and Greenpeace European Unit and

3 May 2022 · New Genomic Techinques

Meeting with Lukas Visek (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans) and Greenpeace European Unit and

3 May 2022 · New genomic techniques

Response to Carbon Removal Certification

2 May 2022

We see many issues in the present call for contributions. The document suggests a mechanism that leads the way to carbon market which are highly problematic not only for small and medium scale farming in Europe, but also for the entire food system, land tenure and resource challenges. The EU should not let these certifications under the responsibility and benefits of private industry and interests. It should rather invest in finding way to truly support farmers in a holistic transition towards agroecological practices. Please see our publication on Carbon Farming here enclosed. We call your attention on our analysis and risk assessment of chapters 4 and 5 (pages 9 to 13).
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Meeting with Benoît Biteau (Member of the European Parliament)

23 Mar 2022 · Carbon farming

Response to Application of EU health and environmental standards to imported agricultural and agri-food products

16 Mar 2022

ECVC, the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) is a grassroots organisation that currently brings together 31 national and regional peasant, agricultural and rural workers' organisations based in 21 different European countries. Food Sovereignty is at the heart of our work, whose main objective is to defend the rights of peasants and farm workers and to promote a diversified and family-based peasant agriculture. ECVC welcomes this reflection on reciprocity of standards, but sees many limitations that the report must address. Trade in agricultural products must be based on the principles of food sovereignty, which includes: - priority to local agricultural production to feed the population, access to land, water, seeds and adequate financing for peasants and landless people. Hence the need for agrarian reforms, the fight against GMOs (genetically modified organisms), the rights of peasants to produce, use, exchange and sell their own seeds, and to keep water as a public good - the right of peasants to decide on what to, when to and how to produce food and the right of consumers to be able to decide what they want to consume - the right of the States to protect themselves from cheap agricultural and food imports, and from agricultural prices linked to production costs: by taxing cheap imports, committing themselves to sustainable peasant production and controlling production on the domestic market to avoid structural surpluses - the participation of the people in agricultural policy making processes - recognition of the rights of women farmers, who play a major role in agricultural production and food All countries must be able to protect themselves against imports that destabilise their food production: If there is reciprocity, it should give all countries in the world the right to protect themselves from the negative impacts of agricultural and food imports. Instead of signing more Free-Trade Agreements, the EU must participate in the promotion of multilateral mechanisms, through the FAO and the Committee on Food Security, that allow all countries to achieve food sovereignty, and the right to protect their local production to ensure their resilience. For ECVC, EU legislation should apply the same standards internally to what is exported. The EU must ensure that pesticides banned in the EU are not produced for export. Standards must take social conditions into account, not just environmental, health and animal welfare aspects: Agricultural competitiveness is achieved by driving down the remuneration and working conditions of farmers and farm workers. The EU must work to improve the respect of peasants' rights, in line with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in the Rural Areas (UNDROP), and promotes a holistic approach as envisaged in the objectives of the F2F strategy and the pending Sustainable Food Systems Act. Do not fall into the trap of technological surveillance: Through the Sustainable Food Systems Framework, Europe must ensure that it favours short supply chains and the development of peasant agroecology, small and medium-sized farms and family farms. The reciprocity of standards must not lead to the industrialisation and digitalisation of agriculture and support the large digital players in agricultural development, but rather favour peasant autonomy in Europe and in the world. We are particularly attentive to the respect of farmers' rights concerning seeds (article 9 of the ITPGRFA). Ensuring inter-European coherence, the Unfair Trade Practices Directive (UTP) is a good entry point: Some countries have put in place laws to ensure that the price paid to farmers is higher than the costs of production, and to ensure a dignified remuneration for all producers. ECVC encourages the European Commission to extend this work to all EU countries, taking inspiration from the work done by the Spanish government. ECVC remains fully available to continue the exchange on this issue.
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Response to Soil Health Law – protecting, sustainably managing and restoring EU soils

16 Mar 2022

The European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) is a European grassroots organisation which currently gathers 31 national and regional farmer, farm worker and rural organisations based in 21 European countries. ECVC dearly welcomes the European Commission’s initiative and has been advocating for land and soil regulation since its foundation. ECVC shares the Commission’s analysis on the European soils’ state of play: intensive and industrial export-led farming compromises soil health, food security and food sovereignty through the heavy use of agrochemicals and heavily mechanised work, while small scale farmers and peasants can restore biodiversity, ensure food sovereignty as well as food security and play a major role in climate mitigation. ECVC pleads for a holistic approach of food systems transformation in order to safeguard European soils’ health and asks for the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) as well as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) which state that land and soils are no commodity but a common good and a right. Therefore, on this basis, ECVC’s demands for a Soil Health Law are as follow: First of all, with regards to the soil restoration matter, ECVC asks the Commission to create a European observatory of soil quality and health and to establish soil restoration programmes in close link with local communities for their implementation (citizens, consumers, farmers, landowners and tenants). Moreover, ECVC calls for the prohibition of land sealing as a main factor of soil and water degradation as well as a hindering factor of climate change mitigation. Secondly, ECVC reasserts that agroecological practices are best suited to both improve soil health and reverse the soil damaging trend embodied by industrial farming. The agroecological use of land must be prioritised in any change of land use, and education and training in agroecology shall be promoted. Finally, to preserve and restore soil as well as to ensure food security and food sovereignty, the food vocation of agricultural land must be protected and energy crops on agricultural lands must be strictly regulated as they lead to the financialisation of land and even more land concentration, damaging the planet, citizens and farmers alike. Thirdly, ECVC urges the Commission to address deleterious phenomena which are among the causes of soil health degradation. Land grabbing must be prohibited in favour of access to land for new farmers and land concentration must be strictly limited. Furthermore, alternative land stewardship models such as commons and territorial markets must be favoured as they are economically, ecologically and socially sustainable ways of managing land. Finally, as recommended in the European Parliament report INI 2016/2141, among others, ECVC strongly calls for a legislative framework on agricultural land governance. Again, ECVC welcomes this European Commission’s initiative and recalls its availability for further exchanges on soil and land matters.
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Meeting with Lukas Visek (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

10 Dec 2021 · Carbon farming

Response to Sustainable food system – setting up an EU framework

26 Oct 2021

A coherent and bold policy to support sustainable food systems is essential to ensure access to good quality, healthy and affordable food to all EU citizens at all times, to ensure good working conditions for farmers and workers throughout the food chain, and to adapt and mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss. There is now a crucial need for a comprehensive and cross-cutting food systems approach that is able to tackle and embrace the complexity and diversity of the issue. ECVC supports the Green Deal objectives, but is calling for means that enable their implementation on the ground, throughout the entire food system. As EESC points it, “the current EU policy framework is not suited to making the transition to more sustainable food systems.” ECVC sees the new initiative on Sustainable EU food system as an appropriate way forward and a good lever of action for the Commission to reach the Green Deal objectives. Food Sovereignty is a key element when it comes to weaving sustainability into such a global and overarching policy, and this is missing from the IIA. Food Sovereignty, as defined by the 2007 Nyéléni Forum, is: “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. ECVC also firmly believes that agroecology is necessary to achieve Food Sovereignty. It must be directly supported by this SFS law. Not only it is presented in the EU Biodiversity Strategy as a means to "provide healthy food while maintaining productivity, increase soil fertility and biodiversity, and reduce the footprint of food production", but the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) presents it as capable of “mitigating some of the adverse effects of intensive agriculture". Several studies support the idea that a European agroecological food production model is possible and can feed Europe (TYFA scenario, IDDRI). ECVC’s general recommendations ECVC encourages the Commission to adopt an umbrella legislative framework, that would enable the different legislations that are related to food within the EU to be harmonised and made more coherent, including the Common Agricultural Policy itself and notably common market organisation, trade policy, the contingency plan, and climate law. It should include a future land directive to ensure that arable land actually enables food productions with a radically increasing quantity of farmers and especially in organic farms throughout Europe. This umbrella law should also include policies related to seeds aligned with compliance with the ITPGRFA, to nitrates, to public food procurement, to unfair trading practices, Competition policy, food safety and hygiene policy, food and drink labelling policy, and finally food quality policy. This means that among the options mentioned in the IIA, the only valid one is the option 4: A new comprehensive framework legislation on the sustainability of the Union food system. This is the only option that would enable the EU to harmonise the different policies that currently lack of coherence. There are indeed cross-references to the various policies, but there is a lack of high-level mechanisms that enable the implementation of these references. To complement this statement, ECVC demands that the Commission set timely and quantitative targets to ensure proper monitoring and constant improvement of the law’s impact. The Commission should prepare directives and assessment tools that are simple and operative to ensure the feasibility of such evaluations, including the cautious application of the precautionary principle. Keeping the lens of food Sovereignty in mind, ECVC made some more specific recommendations in the PDF attached.
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Meeting with Jorge Pinto Antunes (Cabinet of Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski) and Friends of the Earth Europe and

18 Oct 2021 · Presentation of their assessment of the working paper on new genomic techniques +next steps

Response to Restoring sustainable carbon cycles

7 Oct 2021

The EU needs a comprehensive strategy to preserve and develop sustainable agriculture. This strategy must produce enough healthy food to feed all Europeans; drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and food systems; preserve, restore and enhance biodiversity in the countryside and nature; create more and better employment in rural areas; and improve the income and working conditions of farmers and farm workers. The Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) must be based on sustainable family farming involving many European farmers. 1) ECVC welcomes solutions to reduce the European agricultural footprint, notably greater support for small- and medium-scale farming. Industrial agriculture, globalised food systems and their value chains have a huge climate impact. Public policy should thus support agricultural models that are greenhouse gas sinks, as a public good. However, ECVC rejects the CFI and carbon credits because of the severe impact it will have on land, farmers and agricultural models. 2)Missing mention of agroecology and questioning a radical shift towards new technologies Most small-scale farms (small in terms of capital) are labour intensive and use agroecological methods that aid biodiversity and act as efficient greenhouse gas sinks. Studies show that a radical reorientation towards a mainstream agroecological model in Europe is possible and can feed Europe. However, this roadmap does not recognise those who already use or are willing to use agroecology or peasant farming, but rather incentivises investment in technology. The roadmap is oriented towards technology-based solutions and so-called innovative research. These technologies (GMOs, genome editing, pesticides, drones, remote sensing, etc.) are expensive, inaccessible to most farmers , counterproductive in tackling climate change and often a source of debt. The results of their use are often unpredictable and have generally proven to be detrimental not only to the environment, but also to society and health. This leads to a decrease in rural employment, rural depopulation and desertification. It changes farmers’ relationship with land, depriving them of free will over their territory and their objects of work. The CFI should support farmer-led innovation and should set up evaluation committees to involve farmers in technology impact assessments. 3)Climate commodification is dangerous and leads to more environmental and social damage The CFI must radically reduce emissions instead of offsetting them. ECVC is opposed to any carbon credit system and carbon market. The social and environmental impact of other carbon credit mechanisms, such as REDD+ globally and Carbon Farming in Australia are documented and dire. They also failed to improve climate change mitigation. The speculation of agricultural practices and land must be stopped. A carbon market on land will lead to more land grabbing and concentration, preventing young farmers from accessing land and damaging biodiversity, food security and food sovereignty. CAP subsidies also lead to similar phenomenon of land grabbing. The EC must address this and work on a new land tenure directive. 4)Market regulation tools are needed to enable climate-friendly agriculture The roadmap announces "new business models" for farms. It is important to remember that the primary function of farmers is to produce food, not to sell carbon credits. Farmers need better conditions to implement environmentally and climate friendly practices for food production. For this, they need recognition of the amount of work this entails, notably through fairer prices for their products that no longer fall below production costs. ECVC shares the objectives of the F2F Strategy, but we see that there are not enough instruments to act on the markets, there is a major clash with trade policy and there is a major clash with trade policy and there is not enough economic support for a just and inclusive transition for farmers in EU.
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Meeting with Lukas Visek (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

13 Jul 2021 · Sustainable food systems

Meeting with Annukka Ojala (Cabinet of Commissioner Stella Kyriakides)

13 Jul 2021 · VTC meeting - Farm to Fork Strategy

Response to Revision of the plant and forest reproductive material legislation

12 Jul 2021

ECVC as Confederation gathering 31 national farmers and farm workers organizations based in different European countries aims to contribute with the following feedback: 1) ECVC welcomes two proposals, outlined in option 2: - a specific EU framework for the exchange in kind between farmers of PRM and services The exchange of seeds between farmers must be part of the framework of mutual aid, consisting of the exchange of labour services and/or means of exploitation which are occasional, temporary or regular, free of charge or against reimbursement of costs incurred, and without obligation to join any association. Farmers who exchange their own seeds should not be considered professional operators under the PRM. They must comply with phytosanitary rules for agricultural production, adapted to agroecological practices to control health risks, and not rules for the production of plant reproductive material intended for marketing. Like any breeder, they must benefit from the breeder's exception, including when they practice adaptive mass selections in open pollination. - limiting the scope of application of the PRM other than FRM legislation to the professional sector, excluding seed conservation networks and amateur gardeners from the scope of the legislation. Seeds that can be freely reproduced and which are intended for non-professionals must also be accessible to small farmers who produce their own seeds for diversified farming systems, in quantities corresponding to their needs and not to those of large industrial monocultures. The identification of these seeds must be based first of all on the name of the producer, the region and year of production, the obtention methods, the denomination of the species and then, if needed, on the variety/population. The legal frameworks of these two activities will have to be negotiated with the actors of each of these two sectors. 2) ECVC does not support any of the options proposed by the Commission, but highlights some timid openings for more diversity and calls for these to be extended ECVC does support: - the development of heterogeneous biological material and organic seeds , provided that these seeds remain GMO-free (and are not derived from GMOs) and free of any intellectual property rights, contracts or technical barriers limiting the rights of farmers to use, exchange and sell their own seeds. The major advantage of these seeds is indeed to allow each farmer to adapt them to their own growing conditions by reusing them year after year. In Addition ECVC believes that a new reform of the PRM law must compulsorily include the following provisions: - the marketing of mixtures of varieties and species, of all species, selected as a mixture thanks to their suitability for mixed cultures; - the characterisation of varieties by their phenotypic characteristics which have a clear indicative value for farmers and not by genetic characteristics which only serve to strengthen intellectual property rights while making them invisible; - mandatory transparency on breeding, selection and multiplication techniques. The majority of consumers do not want GMOs, old or new, or products obtained by certain techniques exempt from GMO regulations, such as cell fusion. This transparency is essential for organic selection; - mandatory information on any intellectual property right or other right covering marketed seeds, their parts or the genetic information they contain. Farmers need to know whether or not they will be able to freely use and sell their crop; - control of the quality of registered varieties and marketed seeds should remain entirely public. Self-regulated checks make it possible to conceal non-conformities before transmitting the data to the authorities. Small operators who do not have the means to carry out their self-checks should not be forced to entrust their implementation to their larger competitors. We kindly ask you to consider the more detailed doc in annex
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Meeting with Janusz Wojciechowski (Commissioner) and

8 Jul 2021 · CAP reform

Meeting with Roberto Reig Rodrigo (Cabinet of Commissioner Stella Kyriakides) and Greenpeace European Unit and

11 May 2021 · VTC Meeting - New Genomic Techniques and Gene drives

Meeting with Janusz Wojciechowski (Commissioner) and

28 Apr 2021 · CAP reform

Meeting with Lukas Visek (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans) and European Environmental Bureau and

20 Jan 2021 · Discussion on minimum sustainability criteria for public procurement

Meeting with Annukka Ojala (Cabinet of Commissioner Stella Kyriakides) and European Environmental Bureau and

20 Jan 2021 · VC Meeting - Discussion on minimum sustainability criteria for public procurement.

Meeting with Stella Kyriakides (Commissioner) and Greenpeace European Unit and

15 Jan 2021 · VC Meeting - Farm to Fork Strategy and GMOs

Response to Rules governing the production and marketing of plant reproductive material of organic heterogeneous material

27 Nov 2020

You can find the feedback of the The European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) in the attached file. ECVC is a European organization which currently gathers 31 national and regional farmer, farm worker and rural organizations based in different European countries.
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Response to Long term vision for rural areas

3 Sept 2020

EUROPEAN COORDINATION VIA CAMPESINA (ECVC) RESPONSE FOR THE CONSULTATION ON THE EU LONG-TERM VISION FOR RURAL AREAS For European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC), the current situation in rural areas of the European Union is particularly worrying due to the economic models that have been promoted and installed in these areas. The agricultural sector, which is the most important sector in rural areas, is being restructured because of unfair agricultural, energy and food policies that benefit large industrial farms and favour export-oriented agriculture. This system thus pushes small farmers into bankruptcy, often migrating to urban areas. In the period 2000-2012, 4.8 million full-time jobs were lost in EU agriculture. Europe lost one third of its small farms between 2003 (12 million farms) and 2013 (8 million farms). At the same time, large farms own more and more land. Around 20% of EU farms receive 80% of EU farm subsidies, making the CAP illegitimate for small farmers and citizens as a whole. In addition, the CAP is increasingly criticised for its impact on the climate, as while industrial agriculture is strongly supported, small-scale and agro-ecological farming is often marginalised. Finally, the lack of sufficient market and price regulation mechanisms has led the agricultural sector to destroy employment and leave the labour force in hardship and particularly vulnerable. Therefore, for the ECVC, building a new vision for rural areas should start precisely with a radical change in the vision of agricultural and trade policy within the EU institutions and the Member States. The European institutions often propose technology and technical innovation as solutions to these problems, thus hiding the fact that these problems are mainly due to the political decision to treat the agricultural sector as a commercial sector like any other. Moreover, this choice is mainly driven by the profit motive of transnational and commercial groups. With the depopulation of rural areas, the increasing impact of climate change and the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, EU policy makers should take the opportunity to look again at the agricultural sector, based on some key aspects: ( please open the attached document to read the full contribution)
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Meeting with Stella Kyriakides (Commissioner) and European Environmental Bureau and

5 Jun 2020 · VC Meeting - Farm to Fork

Response to Farm to Fork Strategy

25 Feb 2020

European Coordination Via Campesina -ECVC thinks that without coherence between the EU agricultural, food, trade, economic and competition policies, as well as the EU budget, the results of the Farm to Fork strategy will remain very limited. The ambition shown by the Commission in the Green Deal and the Farm to Fork strategy is commendable and for ECVC this political priority is a unique opportunity to promote food and agricultural systems that truly are fairer, more democratic and more sustainable, as well as to develop peasant agroecology and a society that better respects human rights. ECVC underlines, however, that in order to achieve food sovereignty and food security for European populations as locally as possible, the following factors are key: • Developing the relationship between consumers and producers; • Recover the political capacity for market organisation and regulation, around healthy and good quality products; • Having clear political decisions to guarantee a decent and stable income for farmers, in order to effectively engage in the transition to agroecology. In this transition, the development of digitisation can be a useful tool, but it is important to highlight the elevated costs, and the large amounts of energy and non-renewable metals required, and the negative impact on employment. The Commission's objective for a climate-neutral Europe by 2050 requires the development of a greater number of locally-rooted, resilient farms, which will be achieved by improving the position of farmers in the food supply chain, increasing respect for farmers' rights and providing more support for young people who wish to get involved in agriculture, in particular by facilitating access to land within the framework of a European land directive. The Green Deal promises systematic change that leaves no one behind. For this strategy to truly work, it requires a complete overhaul of the CAP, a reconsideration of Free Trade Agreements and the implementation of market regulation measures. ECVC implores the Commission to match its ambition with cross-policy commitment and listen to the thus-far neglected voices of peasants and small and medium-scale farmers who have the knowledge, experience and ability to once again feed the planet in a sustainable and healthy way. Enclosed you can find the ECVC position document on the Farm to Fork strategy.
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Meeting with Lukas Visek (Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans), Roberto Reig Rodrigo (Cabinet of Commissioner Stella Kyriakides) and

20 Feb 2020 · Sustainable food systems

Meeting with Catherine Geslain-Laneelle (Cabinet of Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski)

30 Jan 2020 · CAP, Farm to Fork

Meeting with Elisabetta Siracusa (Cabinet of Commissioner Phil Hogan)

8 Feb 2019 · Cap reform and transitional measures

Meeting with Phil Hogan (Commissioner)

27 Mar 2018 · agri matters

Response to Initiative to improve the Food Supply Chain

11 Aug 2017

- Unfair Trading Practices (UTP) UTP should be eliminated because they generate unnecessary costs, represent an attack on the profitability of family farms and bring distortions to competition. They do not bring benefits to the consumers and cause additional costs for operators. There should be a broad and binding regulation and a single legal approach for the whole EU. Regulatory mechanism should be implemented to prevent abusive and unfair practices between actors in the food chain. In particular it should prohibit abusive practices (sales at loss, blind auctions, taxation of atypical payments…), serve as common feature for all commercial operations, and guarantee the equality of conditions in the EU, while leaving a certain margin for the member states to adapt to their particularities. This mechanism should be controlled by an independent public agency with sanctioning capacity. In this sense, option (3) should explicitly include a EU control and sanction organism, not only the possibility of coordination between mechanisms in Member States. Voluntary initiatives looking to prevent unfair commercial practices are insufficient as it is recognized, for instance, by the Agricultural Markets Task Force. They do not enable peasants to present their complaints anonymously or reduce the fear generated by the possibility of receiving retaliation from their customers. - Market Transparency There is no much price information at industry and retailer position, in contrast to farmers. Farmers’ prices are really transparent but industry and retailer prices and price formation at these stages should be deeply analyzed and studied. It is important not only to gather information along the chain but also to analyse it, to determine how the price transmission along the food supply chain works, especially at the industry and retailer level, and to take adequate measures, if necessary. It is important to analyze price formation at the first stage of the chain (input prices for farmers). For instance, drop in prices on the global energy markets in recent years, even considering the appreciation of the US Dollar against the Euro, did not result in a proportional decrease in the price of several input prices for the farmers. Farmers’ prices are transparent and available for all the stakeholders but input prices and their relation with global energy markets are not deeply analyzed. It could be interesting to develop a tool to monitor the evolution of the input prices in order to render input markets more transparent. - Producer cooperation The functioning of the food chain must be analyzed in a comprehensive framework, including the loss of regulatory and market support elements for peasants. Fighting UTP is not enough to ensure a sustainable future for them. The removal of market regulation instruments and mechanisms, without the necessary structural changes, has put part of the chain in a situation of weakness, and especially the farmers. It is therefore necessary first to ensure the future of the weakest operators putting in place public market regulation measures. These measures should enable producers to balance farm prices with real costs and, on the other hand, to ensure that consumers receive adequate value from the products. Both elements are essential for correct functioning of the food chain. Then, producer cooperation measures may be proposed.
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Response to Interpretative Communication on Foreign Investment in Farmland and European Union law

6 Jul 2017

The European Coordination Via Campesina and the Hands on the Land (HOTL) Coalition welcome the Commission initiative to shed light on Foreign Investment in Farmland and European Union Law and would like to emphasise five main points that the European Commission (EC) and DG FISMA should take into consideration when developing the Interpretative Communication: 1. The central issue tackled in the Interpretative Communication should be the regulation of farmland markets within the EU, irrespective of the investors’ nationality. The idea that foreign investment in farmland is the problem is misleading. Normally land conflicts and land regulation have as target large scale investments on farmland, domestic and foreign, state-led or private, that threaten small-scale farmers, agricultural communities and food security in the EU. Those investments are drastically changing the land tenure, land use and ownership structure of the EU farmland sector. The European Union Court of Justice – as well as some Member States’ constitutions - recognise that farmland cannot be considered like a commodity as any other and that restrictions on the fundamental individual freedoms and on farmland investments are possible and necessary in order to protect and preserve the agricultural use of land and the small scale farming models that are dominant in Europe. 2. Based on this jurisprudence and looking at the dramatic situation on the fields, the Interpretative Communication should focus on a list of regulations, measures, and guidelines to regulate farmland markets respecting EU law, to ensure that small and medium scale farmers especially young farmers have access to land and to prevent land concentration and land speculation. This will be coherent with the requests put forward in the own initiative report on farmland concentration (“State of play of farmland concentration in the EU: how to facilitate the access to land for farmers 2016/2141 (INI)”). 3. DG FISMA should include in the Interpretative Communication a clear reference to existing legal tools adopted by all member states such as the Tenure Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of Food Security (VGGT). In this regard, the EC should align the interpretative communication with all relevant parts of the VGGT, especially its objective and guiding principles, but also other parts including, but not exhaustive, the Part 4 on Transfers, Part 5 on Administration and Part 7 on Implementation. Member states should be invited to respect and implement the VGGT, involving in such process especially small-scale farmers organisations. 4. The EC should clearly make a reference in its communication to the fact that farmland regulation deals also with basic human rights such as the right to food. Fundamental individual freedoms in the EU should be balanced with the appropriate measures to pursue legitimate public interest. The EC should mention the impact that land tenure has on human rights and how important is for member states to comply with basic human rights such as the right to food. 5. A point that is frequently made by the EC is that Member States have jurisdiction to regulate their land markets but that their national regulations have to respect the EU law. However, the European Union has denied its responsibility to look at the impact of EU legislation on the land markets. Therefore, in its Interpretative Communication DG FISMA should point out to the need of an EU directive on land tenure that sets general principles for a fair land tenure regulation in the member states, based on the considerations above. This takes into account that an emphasis on access to land via the market has proven to be insufficient, unfair and detrimental for agricultural production and for the environment.
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Meeting with Elisabetta Siracusa (Cabinet of Commissioner Phil Hogan)

30 May 2017 · • process of Modernising and Simplifying the Common Agricultural Policy

Meeting with Vytenis Andriukaitis (Commissioner) and

28 Sept 2015 · New breeding techniques, GMO

Meeting with Tom Tynan (Cabinet of Commissioner Phil Hogan)

8 Sept 2015 · Business discussion

Meeting with Tom Tynan (Cabinet of Commissioner Phil Hogan)

8 Sept 2015 · Milk policy

Meeting with Peter Power (Cabinet of Commissioner Phil Hogan) and ActionAid

30 Jun 2015 · Rural policy issues in Europe and Africa (discussion Action Aid and Via Campesina)

Meeting with Vytenis Andriukaitis (Commissioner) and

30 Jan 2015 · The Food Chain, Innovation and Challenges, Food Information to Consumers, Nutrition, and Food Waste, Animal Health, Animal Welfare and Plant Health

Meeting with Elisabetta Siracusa (Cabinet of Commissioner Phil Hogan)

16 Dec 2014 · State of Play of CAP, including productions like Milk, State of Play of TTIP and other FTAs, Food Quality, Food chains and short circuits, Policies for family farms