Farming: EU warned of risks if focus shifts from food first EUROPEAN Union farm ministers have been bluntly told that, after half a century of stability in the supply of food, the world is entering a period of instability and, as far as the EU is concerned, a growing dependence on the importation of strategic agricultural commodities. Spelling it out to the ministers at the commencement of the Cypriot presidency of the EU, the chair of the European Parliamentary agriculture committee, Paolo De Castro, warned that the world was on the brink of another food price crisis. This would be the fourth time in less than five years this had happened, he pointed out. The only answer to the present wild fluctuations in prices, in his view, was to make food security within the EU a "cornerstone" of the forthcoming reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. EU politicians had a duty, he said, to ensure that there was a secure supply of high-quality food for EU citizens as well as other less tangible benefits such as meeting environmental targets in bringing forward the next CAP, which is due to be in place by January 2014. To achieve both a secure food production and wider environmental objectives, he did not want to see any further erosion of what he described as the potential of European agriculture. The effects of competing for land-use had led to the reduction of the surface available for farming in Europe, he noted stressing that this trend needed to be tackled. "Less agriculture also means less supply of public goods, which include tackling climate change, development of rural areas and defence of bio diversity" and these ideals could not be abandoned, he said. "Twenty years of reforms of the CAP have given us a more sustainable agriculture, more consistent with the needs of society and closer to the market, valuable results that must be defended," he said. Touching on the proposed environmental policies, De Castro did not hold back: "We all want a system that would be more consistent with the needs of different territories. There are different proposals on the table but the crucial point for the agriculture committee is more flexibility, less bureaucracy, more effective actions. He admitted that, with some 6,700 amendments to the current proposals, there would be "a lively debate" in parliament in getting a consensus from the MEPs especially as he claimed there was a "large convergence" on the major issues. The packaging of CAP reform will not be left solely to the members of parliament in the coming months as there will be parallel debates going on among EU governments and ministers of agriculture. In addition and crucially, the finance ministers of the member states will meet to determine the size of the EU budget in the coming years. That will be critical to knowing how much will be available to the CAP.