Solidarity in Agriculture” “

Continuing to consider agricultural policy as a means of feeding all European citizens; and not renouncing the traditional vocation of solidarity: these are the two principles that the European Federation of food banks wishes to impress on the European Union. “If the European Union wishes to maintain its character of solidarity, it cannot renounce providing its poor with food”. Bernard Dandrel , French, President of the Federation, asks for specific commitments from the EU institutions. T Thirty-five million poor without food. The European Federation of food banks is an umbrella organization that represents some 17,000 groups scattered all over the continent. Each year it distributes gratis approximately 150 million tons of foodstuffs to the poor, worth an equivalent of 320 million euros: the beneficiaries were almost two and a half million last year: “But they are only a tiny fraction of the 35 million Europeans who are living in conditions of poverty and don’t have enough to eat. We cannot – says Dandrel – remain indifferent to them”. The first food bank was established in Europe twenty years ago. The Federation was set up in 1986. It is now present in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Greece, Poland, Ukraine and Latvia. The quantity of food distributed by food banks has been gradually increasing in recent years; a third of the resources of the banks comes from the Union’s production surpluses, the rest from farms and food companies, or is donated by consumers, or by wholesalers and retailers of the continental commercial network. Food aid and agricultural policy. Bernard Dandrel, with his deputy, the Italian Marco Lucchini, is sending a document to all MEPs, members of the Commission and the current Presidency of the European Council, asking for guarantees that the so-called “intervention stocks” are not reduced in the reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP) now being implemented. The appeal was presented at the seat of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday, 15 January. “We understand the need to control agricultural expenditures – explains Dandrel -, but by blocking production surpluses or preventing them from being transformed into essential commodities, we risk worsening the position of the less fortunate. The situation could become even more critical in a few months’ time, when the Union will be enlarged to countries in which there are still many destitute people”. The commitment that the Federation of food banks asks of the EU is to consider, “as has always been done in the Community, agricultural policy as a means of feeding all European citizens, beginning with those worst off”. The document more particularly concerns Regulation no. 3730 adopted by the Council in 1987 on the impulse of the then President of the Commission, Jacques Delors. It fixed the general rules applicable to supplies of foodstuffs to some organizations derived from so-called “intervention stocks” and earmarked for distribution to the more disadvantaged in the Community (a programme officially known as PEAD, Programme européen d’aide aux plus demunis). The adaptation of PEAD to the new regulations in the agricultural sector now risks depriving the food banks of a large quantity of raw materials to be transformed into food aid. Hence the alarm bells sounded by Dandrel. “Poverty cannot be accepted”. “Today, without social welfare, a large proportion of European citizens would be living below the poverty threshold – explain the directors of the European Federation of food banks, which has prepared a travelling exhibition on the problem. The situation varies from country to country, of course, but each situation of poverty is unique and unacceptable. The European Union of men of good will is indispensable to combat poverty”. The official motto of the Federation, translated in two languages ( Rassembler, collecter, partager – Bringing together, collecting, sharing), sums up the main tasks of the banks, namely, the collection of food in the form of pasta, rice, tinned foods, packaged food, fruitjiuces, and other foods with a long shelf life and their distribution to individuals or families in need. The provision of food supplies and the act of solidarity coincide “with the campaign against any form of waste”. Alongside the daily action “in the field”, the food banks now present in many European cities, and the Federation that represents them, are promoting a series of projects of a cultural character and publications with the aim of publicising the activities they perform. Publications on food banks have recently been distributed in Portugal, Greece and Italy. They include Restaurer l’homme. Vingt témoignages d’associations, describing French experiences.