An interview with members of the National Farmers Unions of England, Wales and Scotland saw Dacian Ciolo, European agriculture commissioner, replying to questions put from farmers in the UK as part of a competition to question the commissioner. In it, he defending his stance on dairy, saying, “Our discussions in the wake of the 2009 dairy crisis showed that some form of mandatory contract would give farmers greater security and a stronger negotiating position in the food supply chain. In fact, in the reform, we are looking to extend this to other sectors.

“In recent years there has been a greater concentration all the way up the food supply chain, with the most concentration at retail end, and the lowest at the production end – to the extent that the farmer is being squeezed more than ever before. So in the dairy package I presented to Parliament and member states last December, I have made proposals designed to provide dairy farmers with greater leverage in their negotiations will processors and retailers.”

Ciolo, says his objective is to let farmers farm: “The main role of farmers is and will always be to produce food. Our objective in this reform is to produce more food – but we have to do it in a way that will mean that we can still produce in 10, 20 or 50 years. Productivity must increase in a way that is sustainable for the long term. This is where our moves to better embrace innovation will become of particular importance.

“As for feeding the world, I believe Europe has an important role to play in addressing world hunger – part of this is about our capacity to produce more and better, and the reform will deliver in this respect – for instance, through the big new emphasis on agricultural research. But in this respect, our development policies are also key. We need to work with the poorest countries in the world to boost their agricultural potential and productivity, and to offer new opportunities to smallholder agriculture in particular.

As regards CAP, he notes, “The CAP has become more and more market-oriented in the last 20 years, and it remains our firm aim that farmers across the EU should get the vast majority of their revenue from the market. However, last autumn we saw a surge in feed prices and in the summer we saw a massive drop in fresh vegetable consumption linked to e-coli in sprouts. The point is we cannot rely on the market alone for something both as strategically important as food production, and as vulnerable to external events. The sector needs support to help it come to terms with this increasing market volatility and price fluctuation. Direct payments, as we want to redefine them in this reform, should become a form of direct income support. At the same time, given the strain that we already see on our natural resources, we have to ensure that any increase in productivity is done sustainably, without placing an additional burden on our natural resources. In short, we are not only looking for our farmers to be more competitive economically, but also ecologically.”