EDA shares European Green Deal
The European Dairy industry is ready to join forces to tackle all environmental and climate challenges, according to the European Dairy Association in its new report.
EDA shares and fully supports the EU’s ambition to take coherent and forceful leadership at European and global level, the association says: “Nutrition, social and environmental benefits are the three major ‘qualitative’ pillars, next to the economic dimension, that European dairy brings in as strong assets for the sustainable development in Europe and beyond: nutrition, social and environmental benefits from dairying are highly important and will be further supported by a streamlined policy environment.
“The new ‘European Green Deal’ and the forthcoming ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy will link and coordinate the multi- layered fields of legislation and sustainability efforts of the dairy sector in a more coherent manner. It remains crucial to respect the complexity of the different levels and actors involved to achieve a real solution in a fair transition.
“The dairy industry is committed to play its role within this new set of policy tools to further strengthen our full engagement and support to the efforts made at all levels of the supply chain. Over the last years, the efforts of companies of all sizes across the Union show the diversity of steps already taken towards ‘greening’ the economy of dairy production and consumption, and the broad spectrum of contribution that dairy can bring to the sustainable development.
“We are ready: The European dairy industry has a long history in providing essential nutrition and caring of animals and the landscape and strives to further highlight its exemplary role in circularity. We are proud of our contribution to the UN sustainable development goals and have summarised our aims in the Dairy sustainability synopsis, first published in 2017. Many dairy companies are making tremendous efforts in these fields, adapted to local conditions and communities, and are acting in view of a wide range of targets to future improvement.
“We can build on our defined goals and the environmental methodology for footprinting to achieve more concrete quantitative improvement in the coming years. We ask the EU institutions to build a coherent and consistent framework of actions, to alleviate evitable legal burden, protect the functioning of our European Single Market and build a better societal foundation with scientific sound base. Please see our EDA paper, The Dairy Sector & the Green Deal.”
“The journey of the European Green Deal will absorb a lot of our energy in the years to come. The Green Deal transformation of Europe will demand a huge effort from agriculture and dairy. We want to focus on this challenge. On this journey, we will need the full support of the Common Agricultural Policy – ‘full’ support translates in both, financial and political support,” adds EDA secretary general Alexander Anton.