madam president it is welcome that we are actually discussing agriculture and food issues in the middle of the session on a wednesday afternoon rather than at midnight
i very much welcome that
one of the reasons is that the massive volatility that we are witnessing today in food prices has at long last acted as a wake-up call to politicians across europe
over the last thirty years we have all become complacent as food prices declined year after year after year in real terms
food has never been cheaper than it has been in the last few years
we have come to expect our supermarket shelves to be overloaded and groaning with food twenty-four hours a day
too much food was thought to be the problem
that dominated the debate up until two thousand and seven rather than the problem being too little
the recent price spikes are a turning point a sign that the days of plenty may be drawing to a close
our current agricultural production model has been based on cheap energy an abundance of land and plentiful supplies of water
that model cannot meet the challenges we face in the future
a rising population to nine billion growing demand from developing countries and the impact of climate change
as professor john beddington the uk's chief scientific officer recently predicted unless we take action we face a perfect storm of scarce energy supplies scarcity of water and food shortages
we need to act now and build a new agricultural model
europe needs to take the lead and the reform of the common agricultural policy gives us the opportunity to map out a sustainable food production system that can meet that huge demand in world food supplies that is going to be needed in the future
