203,812 of 250,000 signatures

Members of the European Parliament

Petition

Most European farm subsidies go towards supporting industrial farming that harms our health. As a European who pays for these subsidies (£100 annual is my share), I urge you to vote so that this money is invested in farming that is good for our health  and for nature instead.

Why is this important?

Industrial agriculture is destroying nature, depleting water resources and fertile soil, and contributing to climate change [1]. This model of production uses massive amounts of artificial fertilisers, chemical pesticides, and antibiotics, which threaten our health through pollution and the spread of resistant “superbugs”. The system does not even work for farmers; over the last decades, millions of farms have disappeared across the EU. [2]. Finally, it puts the future of our food at risk, as farmers are ageing and new generations struggle to enter the sector. Only 5% of farmers are aged under 35 years. [3]

We must act urgently to restore a healthy relationship between farming, nature, and people; to make our farms more sustainable and resilient to a rapidly changing climate; and to safeguard future generations’ ability to farm and make a living from the land.

Our subsidised and export-oriented industrial agricultural system does not contribute to a healthy environment nor a sustainable and healthy livelihood for farmers who are faced with the choice of either intensifying to compete or having to quit farming: between 2007 and 2013, three million farms disappeared in Europe. [6]

The EU subsidises farmers through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It takes up around 1/3 of the EU budget, nearly 60 billion euros of our tax money each year, or 114 euros per EU citizen per year. Currently most of this money is subsidising industrial farming, which contributes heavily to the environmental crisis: farmers get money based on how many hectares and/or animals they have, so the biggest farms get most of the money.

How can this change?

A different farming system is possible, one which works in harmony with nature and protects our climate, health, and precious natural resources, while producing healthy food and achieving decent livelihoods for farmers and workers [4]. We strongly believe that agroecological farming is the way forward, and so do experts and farmers across the world [5]. A Europe-wide transition to agroecology could not only tackle the pressing environmental crises, but also reconnect us with where our food comes from, and make rural areas more vibrant and resilient [6].

But to get there, the EU must stop funding industrial farming and instead support farmers to transition to agroecology. Now is the time to do this.

A reform of the CAP is now entering the crucial final stage. In the week of 19th-23rd October, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), our representatives, will vote on how to subsidise and regulate the farming sector for the next decade. We cannot afford to waste this opportunity to act! It is absolutely crucial that they adopt a position that enables the urgently-needed transition to agroecology, for the sake of young generations, of our farmers, and of us all.

We ask MEPs to ensure a better future for our food and farming by:

Funding the transition to agroecological farming to support farmers who provide healthy food for our communities while caring for our environment and for the wellbeing of farm animals. At least half of the CAP budget should be invested to protect nature, biodiversity and the climate.
Ending harmful subsidies, this means both stopping directly harmful subsidies, for example support for factory farms or unsustainable irrigation, and ensuring all subsidies given are tied to basic environmental and social conditions, including on reducing soil erosion, making space for nature on farms, or guaranteeing workers rights.
Setting clear targets in the CAP, for example for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and reducing pesticide use, to ensure every EU country and every farmer contributes fairly to the changes that are needed to tackle the current global crises.

References:

European Environmental Agency, State of the Environment Report 2020, https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/soer-2020
Eurostat: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Farms_and_farmland_in_the_European_Union_-_statistics#Farms_in_2016
Eurostat: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?oldid=431368#Farms_managers_are_typically_male_and_relatively_old
van der Ploeg et al. (2019). The economic potential of agroecology: Empirical evidence from Europe. & Poux & Aubert (2018). An agroecological Europe in 2050: multifunctional agriculture for healthy eating. Findings from the Ten Years For Agroecology (TYFA) modelling exercise. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335054821_An_agroecological_Europe_in_2050_multifunctional_agriculture_for_healthy_eating_Findings_from_the_Ten_Years_For_Agroecology_TYFA_modelling_exercise
Including the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems
de Schutter, Olivier, “Agroecology and the Right to Food”, Report presented at the 16th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council [A/HRC/16/49], http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20110308_a-hrc-16-49_agroecology_en.pdf

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203,812

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Recent comments

Vicky

My home is surrounded by the pasture land of two different dairy farms that have both expanded to become very intensive in the last 10 years. The slurry (sewage) spreading has become so frequent and huge in volume - waste being spread on every square metre of every field in over 2000 acres (collectively) around us. It is choking and the stink infiltrates our home, causing coughing, shortness of breath, headaches and soreness to the windpipe and chest. They even contaminated our drinking water supply to our home. Intensive farming is poisoning the land, air and our natural water supplies (millions of pounds worth of damage per year), not to mention the light pollution and noise pollution at night (farms going 24 hours a day), affecting wildlife and neighbouring properties. Sleep deprivation for shift workers and nearby homes from non-stop farm work such as grass cutting, silage (grass) collection and slurrying (waste spreading) as well as milking and animal transport (to name a few). The mass genocide and cruelty of the animals - living, sentient beings that feel pain and terror - is unacceptable. Intensive farming is a dirty business - all of the above mentioned problems being caused to get very little in return, when there are more viable, ethical alternatives available nowadays.

susan

The planet is dying

Daniela

We need to invest many back to local farms and vest money into sustainable practices, which elevate our health and harm it.

Chris

Because industrial farming is terrible for the world, future pandemics, migration from southern equator countries north due to global warming caused by industrial farming practices. Meaning war (land & resources) because the very people that caused it, majority western world meat consumers are not going to take in millions of refugees. We already don't. Future economic situation will be messed up due to more pandemics with higher fatality rate due to overuse and adaptation to antibiotics pumped into animals being produced on a huge scale so that farmers can make them the heaviest weight possible to get the most money possible for their "products" and increase their turnover. de-subsidising industrial farming is the only way to break this chain and save the entire future of this planet. I could explain 24/7 to my own family as camly as possible why what they are doing is terrible for the future in every single way but no one cares because it is so cheap to continue eating meat and they will continue to do so as long as it is.

Jan

Animal Welfare concerns

Patricia

I would prefer any subsidies to go to supporting higher environmental standards for the welfare of animals - farmed or otherwise. Organic farming is my preference. Industrial farming is not good for the environment, for animals, for reducing carbon emissions and does not protect the well being of those who inhabit this Earth the animal on it, in the air, in the oceans or in the rivers. There is absolutely no benefit from this form of farming whatsoever.

David

Simple, just the sustainability of planet Earth.

Derek

For the people and the planet

Jane

Animals deserve to be treated kindly, humanely and with respect.

Aleksandar

As i care deeply for the earth and industrial farming is contaminating the soils, cutting the trees and polluting the rivers

Jane

As supposedly the most intelligent race on the planet it is high time we found a different method of husbandry which doesn't treat animals as a mere commodity. There has to be some sort of morality, a code of conduct which means we have done the best we can in their rearing before ultimately taking their lives.

ANN

Sickened by the way we treat animals and, ultimately, people.

Judith

Animals are sentient beings. We don't even treat prisoners this way!

Keith

The CAP is responsible for both the loss of biodiversity and bio-abundance in our countryside. It pays the highest subsidies to the largest land owners, and is unsustainable. It costs the British tax-payer a fortune, yet EU-loving MEPs continue to support this corrupt gravy-train!

Linda

Because apart from it being inherently cruel and utterly inhumane, Factory Farming is directly contributing to horrific environmental destruction and climate change. This has to end.

Jane

I am against any form of industrial farming as I believe it's all about reducing costs at the expense of animal welfare.

Alan

The sooner we're out of the EU completely so that this form of cruel "industrial farming" can be banned in the UK the better!

Pauline

This type farming is not sustainable. It destroys and pollutes the natural environment and wildlife. It creates huge amounts of waste in order to enrich same numbers of greedy individuals

Vicky

I care about animals - I'm a veggie and gave up eating animals because it's just not right. Please stop factory farming - we can also save the environment if we stop this.

Linda

Animals deserve our respect and humane treatment.

Gail

I am disgusted at how little concern you show for the welfare of animals. Please make improvements now.

Dan

Habitat and wildlife diversity protection, preservation of soil quality.

Roger

We are keeping animals in intolerable conditions.

Rosemary

6th Extinction.

Robert

Because the land Will become less a

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Stop subsidising industrial farming!

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