Agricultural leaders from Portugal and Spain demanded this Thursday more aid from the European Union for extensive livestock production, practiced in the cork oak or ‘dehesa’ ecosystem, as it meets European environmental and sustainable objectives.
At a congress in Cáceres, in the Spanish Extremadura, the president of ACOS —Association of Southern Farmers, Rui Garrido, recalled that a new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) is coming, but “still with many uncertainties”????????
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“And already with many voices to consider” that the new community support framework is “obsolete before the contingencies caused by the pandemic and the war”, he said when speaking at the III Luso-Spanish Congress of Extensive Livestock and Rural Development, which runs until Friday.
“One thing is certain”, at least for Portugal, according to the president of Beja-based ACOS: “The Portuguese farmers will receive less aid than in the previous community framework???????? That’s true.”
Questioned by the news agency Lusa, on the sidelines of the congress, Ángel Pacheco, president of the Agri-food Cooperatives of Extremadura, stressed that this region and Alentejo, where the pasture/montado exists, are separated by “a fictitious border” and have “the same problems and the same opportunities.
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“We have the opportunity to demonstrate that extensive livestock farming”, with cattle grazing freely in a varied agrosilvopastoral system, “must be the one that best meets all the objectives set by the EU in the 2030 Agenda, in terms of sustainability”, he pointed out. . he argued her.
For this reason, according to the person in charge of the structure that has 189 associated cooperatives, extensive livestock farming should have “a quality mark” from the EU.
“It is thanks to the work that farmers and ranchers do that we are already capable of meeting these objectives that the EU asks of us, or that we only have to adapt on a very small scale to be able to fulfill them perfectly,” he argued.
For the futureAt the European level, policies to promote sustainability will have to “give priority to those who are work with this sustainability”, which has done so over time, but which is still “trying to convince current generations that this type of extensive production is the most viable”, he has maintained.
Further south, in Spain’s Andalusia region, Agustín González, president of the Huelva cooperative OVIPOR, told Lusa that he was even more disappointed with Europe and the promises of politicians.
“They want the green framework and our profile as producers perfectly meets all the EU requirements, but just say it, when the truth comes they don’t help. It’s all very beautiful, they tell us many stories, but for extensive livestock farming the necessary help never arrives, ”he argued.
With the high production costs in Portugal and Spain, extensive farmers are not “profitable only with the market”, they have to “be helped by Europe”, he defended.
Then there are “other very strong sectors, such as the olive grove [intensivos] like now in the Alentejo, where they receive a lot of help”, when even “they can live only with the market”, compared Agustín González, stressing that he no longer has hope in the CAP.
Source: Observadora
