EU: Agriculture Task Force is a good step forward, say retailers | Progresiv
The European Commission launched its Agricultural Markets Task Force, which will look into current challenges faced by the agriculture sector and will propose recommendations to improve the position of farmers in the food chain, according to EuroCommerce. 
EuroCommerce supports the establishment of the task force and welcomes the fact that it has a high-level retail representative on it. “The task force is a good step forward” said Christian Verschueren, EuroCommerce Director-General.
“We very much hope that it will contribute further to a shared, and fact-based understanding of the challenges facing the supply chain, and identify good practice and long-term solutions to support farmers and their customers.”
Retailers need sustainable and efficient supply chains. As part of a positive response to the current livestock and dairy crisis, EuroCommerce has called for further supply chain dialogue.
Throughout the crisis, retailers across the EU showed solidarity through concrete action and dialogue with farmers and suppliers. They are ready to take this forward and help farmers address some of the longer-term problems. The recent debates have largely ignored these problems, and not created sustainable and robust solutions at national level.
In this context, EuroCommerce also calls on the European institutions to refrain from EU-level regulation of unfair trading practices and to continue to support the momentum achieved through the Supply Chain Initiative.
The initiative is aimed at promoting fair practice as a firm basis for commercial relations and encouraging businesses to deal with their disputes in a way that allows business relationships to continue, rather than litigation, which can undermine them.
“We would like to use this occasion to renew our invitation to farmers’ organisations to join, engage in, and support the Supply Chain Initiative, which is an efficient and non-confrontational vehicle for ensuring fair trading practices,” Verschueren concluded.
EuroCommerce is the principal European organisation representing the retail and wholesale sector. It embraces national associations in 31 countries and 5.4 million companies, both leading multinational retailers such as Carrefour, Ikea, Metro and Tesco and many small family operations.
