The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) approved by 164 votes in favor, 0 against and 2 abstentions the report Benefits of extensive livestock farming and organic fertilizers in the context of the European Green Deal, promoted by the Union of Small Farmers and Ranchers (UPA), which is part of this European body.
The approved report recognizes extensive livestock for its key role in providing “sustainable, healthy, safe and excellent quality” food. A cattle ranch capable of producing food from the use of local natural resources such as mountain areas, pastures, marginal lands or areas that are difficult to cultivate.
The secretary of International Relations of UPA, José Manuel Roche, has been the speaker of this document that also points to the fundamental role of fertilizers in the maintenance of soil fertility, as well as in their capacity to retain water and in the fight against erosion.
SAFEGUARD EXTENSIVE LIVESTOCK
The report describes as “essential” to safeguard and protect extensive livestock, ensuring fair prices for producers and adequate and sufficient help in the CAP, recognizing the importance of grazing and all the intangible cultural heritage that it carries, and giving a differentiated treatment and favorable in public policies to this model, especially in the CAP, giving greater flexibility when defining the areas of admissible pasture.
The “Farm to Table” and Biodiversity strategies, as well as the European Green Deal as a whole, mark a way forward in which extensive livestock farming constitutes for the EESC an exemplary model of sustainable production in environmental, social and economic terms. , which contributes to the maintenance of the landscape, biodiversity, the socio-economic development of the rural environment, the protection of the European cultural and ethnographic heritage, as well as the prevention of fires and the capture of CO2 from the atmosphere.
The international head of UPA, José Manuel Roche, has pointed out the importance of an organization such as the EESC unanimously granting such firm support for the benefits of extensive livestock farming, “of which Spain is an example in quality and variety, but which it is at a crossroads, due to the lack of fair prices and the approval of certain measures and policies that pose a serious risk to its future ”.
(Photo: Joaquín Terá)
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