The grain exports from Russia and Ukraine as well as the harvesting season in the spring being a casualty of the war between the two countries, the more urgent it is that farmers in the rest of Europe produce substantially more—which implies suspension of the EU Green Deal. Allegedly, the EU Commission is working on an emergency plan including at least a partial suspension of the Farm2Fork package; this would allow up to 250,000 set-aside hectares of land in Germany, for instance, to be reused for farming.
On March 23, the European Commission approved a $550 million emergency package for EU farmers, said to allow them to grow food and feed crops on fallowed land, and still retain their co-called greening payments. However, much more is involved to increase production—including dealing with fertilizer, fuel, and other high-input costs, and also still being under the Green Deal Farm-to-Fork restrictions on use of farm chemicals (pest and weed killers), etc.
The Chairman of the Agriculture Committee in the European Parliament, Norbert Lins (CDU), criticized the emergency plan. “The situation in Ukraine and Russia will probably lead to crop shortages until at least 2023,” he stressed. Suspending the Green Deal this year is therefore not enough, he said. In addition, he said, the EU must allow farmers to use weedkillers on land that is actually set-aside.
