Read the full report here

Lees de Nederlandse samenvatting hier

The research exposes the vast financial networks driving the destructive salmon farming industry across Europe. And what turns out? Over the last 10 years, banks in the Netherlands have collectively provided the largest non-Scandinavian source of credit to Norway’s aquaculture sector, with Rabobank providing $1.8 billion and ABN Amro $1.3 billion since 2015. Together these banks form the top two biggest creditors to Mowi, the largest salmon company in the world with various controversies behind its name.

Even sustainable bank Triodos has invested $16 million in Bakkafrost, invested $16 million in Bakkafrost, a growing player in North Sea salmon. The messaging of sustainability doesn’t match Bakkafrost’s track record with high mortality rates among the salmon and sea lice infections.

From Ireland to Senegal, local fishing communities are experiencing a devastating fundamental disruption to marine ecologies and local economies. The disruption and undermining of traditional fishing practises amounts to nutritional colonialism, with Norwegian companies leading a Blue Empire, partially bankrolled by Dutch banks.

Banks and investors must recognise this destructive practise and stop financing salmon farming now!

Photo credit: Bob Brown Foundation

Heated debates, protests, and no real action in sight: that is how the debate around the future of EU Agriculture went on for years, leaving everyone frustrated. At the same time, 5.3 million farms had to close down in the last 15 years, leading to personal hardship and huge gaps in European landscapes and rural communities.  

After a promising Strategic Dialogue which brought together 29 stakeholders from all directions and backgrounds, hope for real change was in the air. Then, on February 19th, the European Commission presented its “Vision for Agriculture and Food”, outlining its perspective on the future of the sector while announcing specific legislative action in the coming years. What is our take on it? 

The good. 

As outlined in the Vision, practices where farmers are systematically forced to sell below costs will no longer be tolerated. To facilitate this, the ‘Unfair Trading Practises’ Directive will be revised. Mental health in the agriculture sector should not be a taboo but part of the social support system for farmers and workers. Community-led initiatives, including food councils – recognized as a key driver of change – will be supported, and the EU Commission is committed to bringing these voices to the EU level. As a part of the Food Voices Coalition, we certainly appreciate this. Public procurement will be strengthened with regards to local and sustainable food. Food waste and loss reductions, underlined by the first-ever binding reduction targets agreed recently at EU level, are recognised as crucial, to the benefit of “EU citizens, farmers and all other actors across the food supply chain” (Vision, p. 24). In a world of severe geopolitical tensions, Europe must take its food sovereignty into its own hands and cut its dependency on harmful imports of proteins/feed for our animals, and (also still Russian) fertilisers. Above all, the agri-food sector needs to (finally) function within planetary boundaries. This is where it gets tricky… 

The bad. 

For years there has been a heated discussion around the inefficient and unsustainable payout of the largest chunk of CAP payments. These are largely based on the size of farms and often go towards big agri businesses and landowners. With 1000 farms closing down every single day, the failure of EU payment schemes has therefore been evident all the way – without causing much of a change and empathy from conservative policymakers.  

In the Strategic Dialogue in 2024, one clear outcome was the call for a strong move away from basic hectare-based payments towards targeted income support and effective environmental payments. Yet in the Vision, this is only partially recognised. Yes, “future CAP support will therefore be more directed towards farmers that actively engage in food production, towards the economic vitality of farms and the preservation of our environment”(Vision, p. 7). Yes, farmers who need it the most should be supported, in particular young and new farmers. But, using more powerful instruments such as the degressivity and the capping of subsidies based on farm sizes will be only “considered” (Vision, p. 8) – a very worrying sign. More concerning still, this new approach towards subsidies “should consider prioritising production of agricultural products which are essential for the EU’s strategic autonomy and resilience”  (Vision, p. 7) – leaving the door open to continued ‘strategic’ support of industrial meat production, especially with regards to meat imports from Mercosur countries. 

We would have really hoped for a clear commitment of the EU Commission to reduce the extent of animal farming in Europe – because only this way, can we reach our environmental and climate targets (within crucial planetary boundaries). However, even within the Strategic Dialogue participants could not agree to clearly point out the need to reduce livestock numbers, given the unfortunate and irresponsible controversy around this topic. While we still hoped for strong ambition from the EU Commission in this regard, it comes as no surprise that the Vision puts its focus on an upcoming “Livestock strategy”, as well as a new “work stream” focusing on this transition. Interestingly, this will “seek ways to address its climate/environment footprint, including ways to valorise the link between livestock production and maintenance of environment- and climate-valuable grasslands through more extensive livestock systems beneficial to the preservation of biodiversity and landscapes” (Vision, p. 16).  

But how does this fit together with the current biomethane upscale that will especially benefit factory farms? The Vision not only fails to provide an answer on that. Even worse, its stresses the role that “technological advancements” will play in this. But we will not solve our animal problem with tech-fixes such as biogas and feed additives. The EU Commission should not allow itself to be blinded – especially not in the upcoming revision of the Nitrates Directive – by gloomy announcements of the industry, which ultimately just wants to save its polluting business model!

Similarly, the EU Commission puts a big focus on the development of the bioeconomy and circularity, which should open up new revenue streams for farmers and the possibility to use farm residues. The role of biogas in this is highlighted. Clearly, in anticipation of a “Bioeconomy Strategy” awaited for the end of 2025, this risks further fuelling the current biomethane rush that we are seeing – especially as the EU Commission is not explaining in more detail what role biogas and biomethane could (and should not!) play in the future EU food system.  

The ugly. 

The biggest disappointment of the Vision clearly is the loud silence around sustainable and healthy diets. One of the biggest achievements of the Strategic Dialogue was to support a “sustainable balance between animal and plant-based protein intake at the European population level, (..) by balancing towards plant-based options and helping consumers to embrace the transition” (Strategic Dialogue, p. 54), now any reference to this is missing. Not developing a vision for the consumer side and healthy diets as part of the food system clearly is a missed opportunity and disappointing – especially after more than 130 organisations called for a Plant-Based Action Plan recently. Consuming healthily, especially more plant-based protein, is part of mitigating the climate crisis and would stimulate the demand side for organic products and for regenerative agriculture – a win-win situation for farmers and consumers! 

Fishy business. 

Lastly, there is also some fishy business in the Vision. Next to an upcoming Oceans Pact, the EU Commission will prepare a “vision for the fisheries and aquaculture sector with a 2040 perspective to ensure its long-term competitiveness and sustainability, work to ensure job creation and address pressing issues affecting the fishing community” (Vision, p. 3). Well, we are curious to see whether the EU Commission has read our latest Blue Empire report! Industrial fish farming certainly has many murky practises… 

The end? 

Unfortunately, the Agriculture Vision is too often ‘business as usual’ with few corrective actions that live up to the big challenges ahead. 

Blind trust is put into new technological fixes, perpetuating farmers’ dependencies on banks and big companies for those investments. As it stands, strengthening agriculture’s foundation (nature!), only plays a secondary role. There is far too little attention and too little action to address the climate crisis and its impact on our food system.  

But while this Vision is not yet future-proof, hope persists, especially as many elements are still unspecific and need to be further developed. For us, this means to work all the harder in the coming weeks and months! 

It finally happened! After years of discussions and difficult negotiations, the EU has agreed to legally binding food waste reduction targets – a world first! This will legally require millions of tonnes of food waste to be reduced by 2030 in the 27 EU member states. 

And also for us at Foodrise, it is a big moment. Founded as an organisation committed to stopping food waste and saving precious food together with communities, we have been fighting for this for 12 years!  

What was agreed? 

• TARGETS: As – unfortunately – expected, the Council of the EU and the EU Parliament agreed to stick to the same low targets as proposed by the European Commission in the first place: a (very low) 10% reduction in processing and manufacturing food waste by 2030 compared to 2021-2023; and a 30% reduction per capita of food waste from households, retailers, and food services compared to 2021-2023. Primary production is excluded from the targets completely. At the same time, the EU is supposed to be committed to meeting Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 to halve food waste by 2030. In other words: with the agreed very disappointing targets, the EU is effectively planning to fail! 

• EDIBLE or INEDIBLE food waste? The agreed legally binding targets to reduce EU Member State food waste will cover both the edible and inedible parts of wasted food. As part of the negotiations, EU Member States pushed for a separate approach, focusing targets solely on the edible fraction. With data currently unavailable on the distinction between edible and inedible food waste, this would have delayed targets – and limiting targets to inedible waste would have reduced the ambition of targets. Moreover, it is possible to reduce inedible food waste through prevention of overproduction and overconsumption. We therefore opposed a target narrowly focused on edible food waste only. In the end, the respective proposal was removed from the final deal – a success! 

• DONATIONS: Towards the end of the negotiations, suddenly a proposal to introduce mandatory donations of unsold food to food banks got on the table. As this would have actively undermined the cause for designing food waste and food poverty out of the system – as our Senior Policy and Campaigns Manager Martin Bowman has explained in this article -, we strongly opposed such a clause, and succeeded.  

• REVIEW CLAUSE: The co-legislators agreed to let the EU Commission review – by the end of 2027 – the targets to be reached by 2030, and, if appropriate, to modify and/or extend them to other stages of the food supply chain. Also by the end of 2027, the deal includes an assessment of the extent and causes of food waste and losses in primary production and possible measures against it. A fundamental problem thereby remains: the vast majority of primary production food waste is currently excluded from measurement, so there is no baseline data available for most primary production sector yet. Lastly, the EU Commission also got the possibility to potentially propose new legally binding targets for 2035. 

Further context: 

The path towards yesterday’s announcement – after almost 8 hours of negotiations, till 2:45 in the morning – has been rocky: 

• When the Waste Framework Directive was revised in 2018, the Council of the EU successfully delayed the reporting of food waste data by Member States. The same happened to the date when the Commission was meant to propose binding targets. As a result, the EU Commission only presented their proposal in 2023. With negotiations ongoing until now, the beginning of 2025, EU countries had less and less time to act until 2030, further limiting their willingness to be more ambitious. 

• The EU Commission offered almost no civil society consultation when developing the targets in the first place. In their limited consultation, there was no chance to comment on what level targets should be set at. Their justification for setting such low targets for the manufacturing & processing sector was weak – and seemed to be based on industry pressure. 

• The European Parliament elections in 2024 meant a shift to the right and emboldened the European People’s Party (EPP) to move away from their previous commitment to higher targets. Together with an unambitious lead negotiator (’rapporteur’) from the Eurosceptic ‘European Conservatives and Reformists’, this further weakened the European Parliament’s ability to push for higher targets. 

To sum up: 

Since 2030 is now only 5 years away, the 30% targets for households, retail and catering sectors will still be stretching for many Member States. It will therefore be essential for EU countries to rapidly develop action plans to unlock faster progress, drawing on regulations beyond just voluntary business measures. More ambitious countries should see these binding targets merely as a floor to their ambition and still voluntarily aim to halve food waste in all sectors by 2030. Here, we especially want to highlight countries such as the Netherlands, Romania, and Austria who also stated their higher ambition in our EU food waste survey last year. Looking forward, it is essential for the EU to extend measurement to cover food unharvested on farms and include primary production in binding reduction targets, as otherwise food waste risks being pushed onto farmers. 

Luckily, we were, and we are not alone in this. As part of the Prevent Waste Coalition on food waste, together with EEB, ZeroWaste Europe, SAFE, as well as TooGoodToGo, in the past years we raised pressure on policy-makers and fought hard for more ambitious targets – be it through exchanges with EU Member States, political groups in the EU Parliament, as well as the EU Commission. With several policy briefings and statements supported by experts and organisations from all over Europe and beyond, we not only made some noise, but also contributed critical evidence for an informed debate. Thank you to all our partners, who made this possible!  

Our fight to halve food waste until 2030, from farm to fork, continues! 

22 October 2024. The alarm sets off early. I check my emails and open Euractiv’s Agri-Food morning newsletter.“EU biomethane target ‘a curse’“, it says in the title. And my tiredness disappears immediately. 

Euractiv Agri-Food Brief, 22 October 2024 

Launching a new report is always a big moment. It’s the ‘grande finale’ after months full of strategy discussions, researching, editing, media work, and most of all great teamwork. 

But this time, an extra element of excitement came into play, as Foodrise EU is about to present its newest report “Biomethane from manure: a curse, not a cure“ at the European Biogas Conference.  

Organised by the industry every year in Brussels, it is not only the most prominent platform to discuss the future of biogas and biomethane in Europe. As tickets cost almost 1000 euros, it is also an exclusive space that in most cases makes it impossible for civil society organisations to participate and bring in their perspective. 

But this year is different. The European Biogas Association has accepted our proposal to present our newest report at the morning plenary “The future of agriculture, today. Resilience, Sustainability and Food Security“.  

In front of more than 700 guests, during her speech our researcher and author of the report, Francesca Magnolo, highlights key concerns about the current and planned upscale of biomethane from manure, stressing that it:

🔸Creates (financial and regulatory) incentives to maintain or expand livestock production, when a drastic reduction in both production and consumption is essential to meet the EU’s environmental and public health goals and keep global warming below 1.5°
🔸Replaces a natural gas dependency with an animal feed dependency sourced from other continents, especially in the Global South, transforming animal feed into energy crops. This shift threatens the EU’s strategic autonomy and perpetuates neo-colonial forms of extractivism.
🔸Contradicts key EU policies, such as the EU Nature Restoration Law and the Deforestation-free products Regulation.
🔸Worsens power imbalances by increasing competition for land and driving up rental costs.  

Naturally, not everyone in the conference hall agrees with our concerns. I can hear it bubbling more and more in the rows of seats behind me, with people starting to debate with each other. 

After her presentation, Francesca Magnolo joins a constructive discussion with Connie Miller (FAO); Gaelle Marion (EU Commission), Diana Lenzi (Farming for Future Foundation), and Laurence Molke (Cycle0). As the audience also asks questions about our report, we have already achieved one thing: our concerns are being discussed at the centre of this conference! 

Our intervention and main policy recommendation, to end incentives to manure as biomethane feedstock, is then also displayed in the visual summary of the plenary: 

And also after our participation in the morning plenary session and during the entire two-day conference, we achieve exactly that: a debate. Again and again, people approach us and congratulate Francesca Magnolo on her speech. We hear from a biogas association that acknowledges a reduction in animal farming in its country, and has already significantly reduced its projected use of manure as a feedstock. We hear from biogas producers who reflect the origin of their feedstocks, and rather chose truly sustainable smaller scale options (horse straw & poop!). But we also engage in controversial discussions with fossil companies such as Repsol who are now heavily investing in biomethane from manure to “green” their business. Here, it becomes dramatically clear that those companies simply do not (want to) have a clue what the current harmful impact of the agricultural system is – and that biomethane will not solve the damage that intensive factory farming is causing every single day.  

But there is no time for frustration – the next dialogue partner is already waiting! And it again provides us extra motivation to keep exposing those harmful business models and the destructive relations between industrial meat consumption, biomethane production, and the health of our soils.  

After two days, I am exhausted. But most of all, I am glad that we attempted this adventure, including many encounters and contacts that we would otherwise never have made and reached with our report & evidence.  

And one thing is certain: our journey to “burst the biomethane bubble” – as part of a great coalition of inspiring organisations – continues! 

📸 credits : Gleamlight / Philippe Molitor 

As part of the Food Voices Coalition, we have sent a letter accompanied by our manifesto to Christophe Hansen, the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food. The coalition includes seven organisations from six European countries: Foodrise UK, Green REV Institute, Terra!, CECU (Federación de Consumidores y Usuarios), CAN France, ALTAA (Alliance pour les Transitions Agricoles et Alimentaires), and Foodrise EU. Together, we strive to fix a broken food system wherein corporations dominate decisions, silencing the voices of those who grow, harvest, and consume food. 

In our manifesto we call on commissioner Hansen to join us in transforming retail practices that maintain an unhealthy, unequal and unsustainable food system. Additionally we urge him to work on a progressive food system to ensure that food is produced, distributed and consumed in ways that respect the planet, uphold human rights and animal welfare, empower communities and support equitable economics. 

Our ask is clear: let’s work together to create a food system that benefits everyone. We have invited Commissioner Hansen to meet with us and explore how we can collaborate to bring these ideas to life! 

Read the letter to Commissioner Hansen here

With the new EU Commission in office, this is also an exciting time for the Food Policy Coalition (FPC), a diverse group of organisations representing farmers, consumers, nature, health, and animals. With Foodrise EU being an active member, we are proud to announce two letters that the FPC has published this week:

1. Together with 43 organisations, we have written to the new EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Christophe Hansen, to offer our help and expertise in shaping policies to support a transition to fair, healthy, and truly sustainable food and farming systems. You find the whole letter here
2. And together with over 20 civil society organisations, we call on Vice-President Ribera Rodríguez and Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra to put climate action and a just transition for EU agriculture at the core of their work. This also means to not waste public money on “technological fixes” such as biomethane production (as explained in our recent report), but rather develop a strategy for shifting animal farming away from industrial models that harm our environment communities, animals, and health! In this journey, farmers should be strongly supported. You find the whole letter here.

On 19 November 2024, the fourth Plant the Future dinner took place, organised by the Transition Coalition Food. The afternoon programme brought together around 230 people from a wide range of sectors: entrepreneurs from the entire chain, scientists, NGOs, and politicians. The theme was ‘from ideal to business impact’. Despite the great diversity of contributions by speakers, including from meat processing companies, there was no doubt among those present about the need to reduce the share of animal protein in our diet and to drastically increase the share of plant-based protein.

Foodrise EU was one of the many organisations and companies that hosted a round table. At our table were Elly Hemmelder (supermarket Plus) and Eline van Muilwijk (Quista), Bram van Helvoirt (scientist), Brenda Poot (Municipality of The Hague), Liane Lankreijer (Ons Eten, a local food alternatives network in The Hague), and Renate Stuger (founder of the petition for a neighborhood supermarket in Moerwijk). Foodrise EU specifically invited them to support the initiative from Moerwijk for a supermarket with economic, ecological, and social functions for the neighborhood and to further explore the concept of a democratic supermarket. During the imaginative and tasty plant-based dinner, we had inspiring conversations about giving voices to people in the supply of produce and value creation of supermarkets and what would be needed to make this happen. Time flew by and at the end we concluded that we would like to set up a business case with residents and entrepreneurs for a social and healthy supermarket, in which of course the share of plant-based proteins is at least 60%, but also the supply meets at least 60% of the Wheel of Five with mainly fresh food and short chains. We would like to thank our guests for their committed and inspiring contributions to the discussion!

During the dinner, Frank Mechielsen, director of Foodrise EU, offered a summary of the report “Trading away the Future? How the EU’s agri-trade policy is at odds with sustainability goals” to MPs from five political parties. The report uses case studies in soy, rapeseed, and beef to show that EU trade policy does not contribute to a sustainable transition of our food system, but rather increases inequality and climate change, health problems and food insecurity.

Key-note speakers were Rasmus Prehn, former Danish Minister of Agriculture, and Rune-Christoffer Dragsdahl, President of the Vegetarian Association in Denmark. They presented the progressive Danish Plan of Action to enable the plant-based transition in agriculture. Their main message was to work together, even with parties with whom you usually do not sit around the table and look for the common ground that connects us all, in this case food. In the process, all interests are carefully considered, but it is inevitable that concessions will also have to be made. Above all, look for the possibilities for all parties. They referred to the Netherlands, where the agriculture sector has many similarities with the situation in Denmark, to develop its own Plan of Action to accelerate the food transition and to collaborate with the Danes to produce such a plan at the European level as well.

Following our research and campaigning highlighting the supply of fish oil sourced from FAO 34 — the Major Fishing Area located off the coast of Northwest Africa — to the European feed industry, Foodrise is issuing this statement in response to the industry’s response, including:

• Salmon Scotland statement that it does not use marine ingredients sourced from West African fisheries;

• MOWI’s statement that it has not sourced any raw materials from Mauritania since 2023;

• Skretting statement that Skretting Norway did not purchase fish oil from Africa in 2023 or 2024 (although we note that according to a media report in November 2024, Skretting stated that it continued to source from the region).

We are pleased that the industry has responded to the overwhelming evidence on the damaging impact of sourcing from this region.

We remain extremely concerned about the ‘food-feed competition’ which is being driven by the global aquaculture industry in regions around the world as high-impact activities such as salmon and seabass farming continue to expand to serve high-income consumers in Europe, North America and Asia.

We therefore reiterate our call to companies throughout the supply chain (feed ingredient and compound feed producers, farmed salmon companies, retailers and food service companies) to provide full transparency on their sourcing practices and to comply with the following set of demands:

• Fish meal and fish oil (or products dependent on FMFO) should not be sourced from locations where its production is driving food-feed competition and exacerbating food insecurity and/ or exacerbating the risk of collapse of the marine ecosystem

• Salmon producers must have clear policies on responsible feed sourcing, which exclude the sourcing of feed produced with ingredients that are driving food-feed competition and exacerbating food insecurity and/ or exacerbating the risk of collapse of the marine ecosystem
• Producers must be fully transparent, consistent and granular on their aquafeed sourcing, including volumes, locations, species

Read the full report here

English summary

Dutch summary

Our new report is out!

There is no better time to rethink the EU’s current agri-trade policy. Recent U.S. election results have revealed the sudden vulnerability in the European Union’s global position. With Donald Trump threatening new tariffs and trade restrictions on Europe, the risks of the EU relying on third countries for its plant protein supply have become painfully clear. At the same time, the controversy surrounding the EU-Mercosur trade deal has laid bare the stark consequences of current trade agreements: negative impacts on farmers’ livelihoods due to unfair competition and environmental harm. This deal alone could trigger between 620,000 and 1.35 million hectares of deforestation over just five years, driven by expanded beef production in the Mercosur region.

As one of the largest global markets and one of the world’s most outward-oriented economies, the EU plays a key role in influencing global food trade. However, our new report ‘Trading Away the Future? How the EU’s agri-food policy is at odds with sustainability goals’ reveals how the EU’s current agri-trade policy is undermining global and EU sustainability goals in five key areas:

• The climate crisis: The livestock sector is a major barrier to the EU meeting its commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement and the European Green Deal: in the EU, emissions from the livestock sector are responsible for 81-86% of the block’s total agricultural GHG emissions. This sector is maintained by an abundant supply of imported soy. In 2022, the EU imported nearly 30 million tonnes of soy, amounting to 93% of total consumption. Nearly all of this is used to produce the 150 million tonnes of feed required to sustain the EU livestock sector, making it “a key enabler of mass-produced meat and dairy products”.
• Public health: The EU maintains stringent regulations on pesticide residues in agricultural products. However, pesticides banned or not approved in the EU can return to European consumers through imported soy and rapeseed, used in turn to feed cattle that EU citizens consume. In Brazil, soy is the most pesticide-intensive crop, and Brazil is the EU’s main supplier of soy. A human biomonitoring survey conducted between 2014 and 2021 found that 84% of samples from the bodies of children and adults across five European countries contained residues of two or more pesticides.
• Food security and EU farmers’ livelihoods: Today, one-third of globally produced calories are used to feed livestock; producing this feed requires three-quarters of agricultural land under cultivation. The EU has a major deficit in vegetable proteins due to high demand from its livestock sector, which cannot be met domestically. This reliance on imports from third countries exposes the EU to natural disasters, pandemics, and geopolitical crises. Additionally, cheap imports of soy and other products undercut EU farmers’ returns, driving discontent that impacts the rollout of crucial environmental policies. This was seen with the Commission’s recent decision to roll back ‘good agricultural and environmental conditions’ (GAEC) in the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) that would have promoted agroecological practices and the growth of protein crops. While far-right political parties and farming lobbies disingenuously co-opted farmer protests to frame them as solely being about the negative impact of “green” policies, the truth is that EU farmers are being undercut by bilateral trade agreements.
• Global equity: The EU’s agri-trade policy undermines public health in third countries and perpetuates neocolonial forms of agrarian extractivism. While 84% of EU exports to the Mercosur region are services and high-value industrial products, 75% of Mercosur exports to the EU are agricultural and mineral resources that require land use change, extraction, and the use of hazardous agro-chemicals. In some cases, these chemicals, despite being banned or not approved for use in the EU, are actually produced by European companies such as Bayer, Syngenta, and BASF and exported to third countries with different regulations on pesticides and herbicides. This is an egregious double standard in terms of respect for public health and the environment within and beyond the EU’s borders. Between 2011 and 2021, over 29,000 pesticide poisonings were recorded in Brazil, the EU’s largest supplier of soy.
• Animal welfare: While the EU positions itself as a global leader in animal welfare by setting strict rules for animal feed and livestock breeding, transport, and slaughter conditions, most obligations do not apply to imported meat. When it comes to imports, only welfare at the time of slaughter is taken into consideration. In Brazil, the second-largest beef exporter to the EU, animal welfare checks on farms and slaughterhouses are not regularly carried out. In Argentina, the third-largest exporter, the humane slaughter of animals is not required. However, there is strong public support in the EU for more stringent import requirements: the special 2023 Eurobarometer survey on animal welfare found that 93% of European citizens want imported animal products to respect the same animal welfare standards as those applied in the EU.

We call for concrete policy actions, including setting more ambitious international standards, adopting import requirements in EU law aligned with sustainability goals that benefit EU farmers, promoting a shift towards protein autonomy, and strategically implementing ‘Mirror Measures.’ The latter is further explored in the coalition report “Double Standards on Our Plates: Using Mirror Measures to Mitigate the Impacts of EU Trade Policy for a Sustainable Food System.”

The time to rethink trade is now!

Read the report

Read the executive summary

With the European Biogas Conference starting today, Foodrise EU’s new research shatters arguments for increasing the use of livestock manure as a feedstock for biomethane production and calls for an immediate moratorium on new and expanded factory farms in the EU.

As the EU is planning to scale up its biomethane production from yearly 4.2 billion cubic meters (bcm) to 35 bcm in 2030, industry calculations heavily count on manure which is expected to contribute one third of all raw materials to this target. Under the heading Biomethane from manure: a curse, not a cure, the latest report from the food justice organisation Foodrise EU dramatically bursts the bubble on biomethane production from livestock manure by exposing the perverse link between the current biomethane rush and the intensification of livestock production in Europe.

As new evidence shows, the push towards expanded livestock factory farms for the production of biogas and biomethane throughout Europe – heavily supported by public subsidies and accounting tricks in the Renewable Energy Directive – is in total contradiction with the requirement to drastically reduce livestock production and consumption. While the current move to more plant-based consumption pattern has also been recently affirmed by the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture, it is all the more worrying that current biomethane policies sabotage such positive developments, standing against climate and public health goals.

Despite the remarkable absence of a European Commission impact assessment, increasing biomethane from manure is hailed as a win-all solution, one that reduces environmental impacts of industrial livestock and contributes to energy independence. This sounds too good to be true? Unfortunately, it is, with the current biomethane rush having major perverse environmental, economic and social implications.

As Foodrise EU’s latest report demonstrates, Europe’s blind trust in biomethane:

• Creates (financial and regulatory) incentives to maintain or expand livestock production, when a drastic reduction in both production and consumption is essential to meet the EU’s environmental and public health goals and keep global warming below 1.5°
• Replaces a natural gas dependency with an animal feed dependency sourced from other continents, especially in the Global South, transforming animal feed into energy crops. This shift threatens the EU’s strategic autonomy and perpetuates neo-colonial forms of extractivism.
• Contradicts key EU policies, such as the EU Nature Restoration Law and the Deforestation-free products Regulation.
• Worsens power imbalances by increasing competition for land and driving up rental costs.

Francesca Magnolo, the researcher and technical expert who conducted the research said: “One of the perverse consequences of the biomethane rush is the ironic replacement of dependence on natural gas imports with dependence on animal feed, particularly from the Global South. In other words, biomethane fuels the neo-colonial exploitation of resources outside of Europe. But social justice issues are also emerging here in the EU, where local communities fear increased transports of waste as well as pollution from biomethane production. Most importantly, these concerns are currently being ignored. At the same time, competition for land and thus rental costs for farmers are rising further and further.”

Frank Mechielsen, Director of Foodrise EU highlighted: “This reports bursts the bubble on biomethane from manure and shows it for what it is: a curse, not a cure. We request an immediate moratorium on more industrial livestock and call on policy-makers to prioritise dietary changes instead. What we need now are coordinated EU energy and food policies for a systemic and just change in our food systems. We cannot afford to repeat the painful mistakes of the last harmful biogas boom.”

In Senegal, the artisanal fishing community is making sure that their voices are heard. Decades of negligent fisheries management, overfishing and the arrival of fishmeal and fish oil factories have led to a dramatic reduction in fish populations along the coast of West Africa. As a consequence, fishermen find it increasingly hard to secure their daily catch. This in turn creates a ripple effect along the value chain: fish processing suffers from an increasingly scarce and expensive raw material. The price of a crate of sardines, sardinella, mackerel for instance have risen ten-fold over the last few years, making it impossible for artisanal processors to compete. 

By tradition, fish processing is a woman’s profession in West Africa. On our recent visit to Cayar, a fishing town harbouring one of the largest fishing fleets in Senegal, we spoke to the local GIE (economic interest group) of women processors and their outlook remains grim. The group’s members – all independent processors – have been in steady decline from over 300 to around 70 with women leaving as they cannot make ends meet through fish processing anymore. Therefore, lethargy has fallen over the processing sites. And it isn’t just the factories that threaten their livelihoods – climate change and new offshore oil and gas exploration in Senegal make the group worry about further harmful effects on the coastal and marine biodiversity and the capacity of fish populations to recover. 

It’s been long since the women were able to pay for the fish they smoke, dry, salt and ferment out of their own purses. They tell us that the only reason they are still in business are foreign companies that buy their product up-front, prefinancing the purchase of the fish they process. Nowadays, most of the fish they use comes deep-frozen from the port of Dakar. Meanwhile, the fish landed on the beach just next to the processing site remains absurdly inaccessible. 

The women are not alone in their fight, however. Several coalitions are active in Senegal, advocating for sustainable fisheries and the fair treatment of artisanal fishing community. The Network of Women in Artisanal Fisheries (REFEPAS) Interprofessional Council of Artisanal Fisheries (CONIPAS), the National Coalition for Sustainable Fisheries (CONAPED), the Coalition Against Fishmeal and Fish Oil Factories have all been putting pressure on the previous and current government. Their goal is to put a stop to allowing further factories to be built on the Senegalese coast and to close the ones in operation. Additionally, they want to make the fisheries sector more transparent, enforce sustainable fishing practices, and prevent foreign fishing fleets from pillaging populations of fish essential to the nutrition and livelihoods across the region. Further desperate calls for action revolve around preventing the persistent tragedy of clandestine migration: among those attempting to cross the Atlantic to reach Europe via the Canary Islands, many come from families dependant on fisheries and who have run out of options. More than 22,000 people have made it to the Canaries this way, more than double than last year. 

When confronted with the devastation caused by the global seafood economy, industrial fish farming and the feed companies that rely on the fishmeal and oil sourced from places like West Africa, it is hard to believe in the many statements of sustainability and efficiency that fish feed and farmed fish producers often like to repeat. Madame Ndao, president of the women processors’ GIE in Cayar, cannot understand why ‘these companies have to come to West Africa to steal the fish that her people depend on. They should be taking the fish from their own waters instead of pillaging elsewhere.’ 

Foodrise continues to work on this issue, hoping to support and amplify the voices like Madame Ndao’s. Our research has and will continue to illustrate how food systems in Europe can have devastating effects in other parts of the world. And we are not alone. The UN special rapporteur Micheal Fakhri, having received a Feedback-led joint letter, made sure to address the issue in the Human Rights Council, stating that: ‘Many farmed fish are carnivorous species that require feed products harvested from wild fish stock, thereby creating another source of pressure on wild fish stocks and disrupting ecosystems. Moreover, global feed companies are exacerbating food insecurity in some communities. For example, over half a million tons of pelagic fish that could feed over 33 million people in the region are instead extracted from the ocean along the coast of West Africa and converted to fishmeal and fish oil, primarily in order to feed farmed fish and livestock, mostly in Asia and Europe.’ We will continue to work with allies in the EU to make sure this issue is not forgotten in policy making and make sure to denounce the companies that profit from this harmful system.  

Photo credits:  Coalition against FMFO factories

On 4 September, Foodrise EU, in collaboration with Buurtkamer de Luyk, organised a meeting as part of our international project Our Food, Our Choice. The reason for this was a petition that active residents in the vicinity of the Jan Luykenlaan, situated in a deprived area of The Hague, presented to the municipality at the beginning of this year with the request for a supermarket. However, residents are asking for more than just a place to buy their groceries. They want a neighbourhood supermarket with a range of products that match the multicultural character of the neighbourhood. There must be a wide supply of fresh, healthy, and affordable food. It must be a place that contributes socially and economically to the well-being of its residents.

This prompted Foodrise EU to commission a study into what these residents consider to be healthy and fair food and what the factors are to make the supermarket a lever for improving the neighbourhood.

In the first part of the afternoon, Guusje Weeber presented her findings, and the gathered residents reacted immediately and unequivocally. Contrary to the perception that people in deprived neighborhoods have no interest in food and only go for the cheapest and fast food, there was a climate of great awareness, and even passion about the importance of healthy food. Even unsprayed food was questioned, because our groundwater, ditch water, air and soil are so polluted that it is unavoidable that it gets into and on the food.

“We think it’s healthy, fresh fruit and vegetables, but maybe it actually makes us sick, that sprayed rubbish causes all kinds of allergies. We will take our responsibility if we can afford it. But the government must do this too, they don’t see the misery they are causing by their bad policies!”

After a short break, Liane Lankreijer of the organization Ons Eten from The Hague introduced the session “Design your ideal supermarket”. In one group, they talked about what can be found in the ideal supermarket and what is definitely not (plastic packaging). The other group focused on what the residents themselves can do to realize the supermarket and on the question in what way the ideal supermarket is different from a regular one.

The local supermarket will supply unsprayed, unirradiated food, fresh and locally grown fruit, and vegetables. To prevent waste, the misfitted vegetables are also for sale in the local supermarket, as well as a smaller range of products. It is not necessary to have ten types of rice on the shelves. Voting on what will be offered in the supermarket, meal prepping, discount cards, loyalty points, recipes, trips to where the food comes from and honest information, hiring young people from the neighbourhood as employees and providing breakfast at schools were mentioned as possible added value.

Residents want entrepreneurs to take responsibility. The pressure must be kept on and media attention is a means of achieving this. One local newspaper showed up. The time was too short to go deep into the topics and from the group came the request to organize such a meeting again, but this time in an evening and with civil servants present.

FeedbackEU created a video of the meeting to use at other occasions, both nationally and internationally, to stimulate the discussion on food poverty and the democratisation of supermarkets:

🚜 Anger, frustration, and burning wheels in front of the EU Parliament. The successful take-over of the protest & public discussion by destructive farming lobbies and right-wing parties. We all still remember these loud (and smelly) weeks of farmers’ protests in Brussels, the Netherlands, and beyond.

But as we stood in solidarity with those peaceful protestors asking for a sustainable & fair change of the current system, the next step was truly disappointing for all of us: shortly before the EU elections, environmental rules of the current agricultural policy were rolled back. And we asked ourselves: what would we be getting into in the coming five years, the new EU term?

🌊 But now the tides seem to have turned. Yesterday, the results of the “Strategic Dialogue on the future of EU Agriculture” were published. The dialogue consisted of 29 diverse (and often opposed) organisations and discussed for 8 months behind closed doors (and without leaks!). Decisions had to be made in consensus – which make the recommendations even more impactful.

So how does the dialogue propose that we get out of this mess?

Some key take-aways from the report:

1. (Finally) change the CAP & reach social justice: we need to fundamentally change the way we spend public money of the Common Agriculture Policy. That means strongly giving money to farmers for environmental services, as well as paying income support only targeted to the farmers who need it most! (p. 42)

2. Bye bye UTP’s! Farmers need to be able to make a living from the products they produce. Unfair trading practises need to be fought against. (p. 37)

3. End unsustainable trade (offs): the EU should ensure greater coherence between its trade and sustainability policies. And the process/purpose itself of negotiating trade deals on agriculture should be reviewed & changed. (p. 47)

4. Go (more) sustainable, healthy & plant-based! Recognizing the current trend of eating more plant-based products, citizens should be supported in this journey, through a review of current food labelling/marketing to children (including sugar), reforming public procurement to favour sustainability over the lowest price, and introducing tax reductions (at the national level) on more sustainable products. (p. 54)

⛔️ Unfortunately, the dialogue could not agree to clearly point out the need to reduce livestock numbers throughout Europe. Rather, the EU Commission should develop a strategy on the role of animal farming in general. More, there is also a focus on (not-defined) tech-fixes to reduce livestock emissions, and an ask for “long-term solutions” for areas which have a high concentration of livestock and environmental pollution.

5. Fight food waste! The EU should strongly fight against food insecurity and food loss & waste. For this, there should also be a focus on local food waste prevention programmes and “food waste hotspots”. Further, an EU Commission’s appointed body including all relevant Commission services should be introduced to coordinate future work on this topic. (p. 69)

6. Bioeconomy, but right? While highlighting the role that biomass will play also in the future, the risks of the bioeconomy (for example, when producing bioenergy from food or plants, as highlighted in our report on biomethane production) are underlined. Such risks also exist for countries outside the EU that supply us with biomass. The report further mentions the necessity to respect the “waste hierarchy” (so that the best use of a resource is ensured). (p. 67)

7. Work harder for gender equality and diversity: unequal access to land, childcare, financing, services, technology, and unsecure LGBTQIA+ rights stand in the way of reaching gender equality and diversity in agriculture and also rural areas! (p. 80)

⚠️ Let’s hope that all these specific recommendations will actually lead the way for the coming years – we have never been closer to making that much needed change!

So the results of the strategic dialogue are not only food for thought. Now is the time to act and implement! 🚀

⚡ We say it like it is: these have been some crazy weeks after the EU elections. But don’t be fooled: the real work for the old and new President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, as well as the new EU Parliament to deliver a Green & Social Deal only starts now! We need courage, we need the “European Pact for the Future“!

Don’t be mislead by those claiming that it’s time to put the brakes on European environmental laws – the opposite is true, as demanded by an overwhelming majority of Europeans!

Source: Eurobarometer, 2024

You want to see what the future could & should bring? Check out & sign the Pact here.

Of course, the coming 5 years will be tough. But the whole Foodrise team will work hard to ensure that the EU..

• gets an agricultural policy that finally pays off for small farms, reduces emissions, and restores our nature.
• agrees on ambitious & the first-ever EU targets to reduce food waste. Currently, we waste more food than we import!
• ensures that its trade policies support rather than contradict laws protecting our environment and health.
• stops the injustice and destruction of our oceans and local communities caused by industrial aquaculture.
• makes citizens’ voices heard when it comes to their wants and needs around healthy, sustainable, and just food environments.

So there is no time to waste, and we are ready to make a change with our partners in the Netherlands, in Brussels, throughout Europe, and Western Africa.

We are in this together. To have a strong say against revisionist parties; and the fossil, meat, aquaculture, and industrial agriculture lobbies, we need everyone! Sign the European Pact for the Future – drafted by the EEB and supported by Foodrise EU – now! #EUpact4future