EUROPE’S PUSH FOR MANDATORY DESCRIPTIONS OF FOOD ORIGINS AND GMO USE ON FOOD LABELS, SUPPORTING ORGANIC, AND MORE FARMER’S MARKETS: THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT SUPPORTS ITALY IN ITS BATTLE TO SAFEGUARD FOOD IN EUROPE

Italy now has a new institutional ally in the battle to get Europe to impose that the origin of products are written on labels. The European parliament has, in fact, pronounced that it is favorable to creating a law that would make this mandatory. And that’s not all: the European assembly has also requested that it become mandatory to note on the labels of all dairy and meat products whether genetically modified organisms were used at any point during production.

To confront the influence of large scale distribution on quality and variety of products, the European parliament has also declared itself in favor of the creation of more farmers’ markets for direct sales between farmers and consumers.
And the political message is clear: consumers must receive more information on the foods they buy. The label on packages must become an “open book” for consumers who want to compare both quality and price in when choosing their acquisitions. One success has already been reached with olive oil, which, starting in July, producers will be obliged to specify on its labels whether the olives used are 100% Italian or not.

In Strasbourg, parliamentarians have already outlined what could be the new profile for a new quality agricultural production plan that should be proposed by the European Parliament next May. The challenge is important: in times of economic crisis, selling quality goods can prove to be a winning strategy for staying competitive on world markets, especially for countries like Italy, which produces more than 4,500 specialized local food products. The important thing is that there is no unfair competition by importing producers because “EU norms for food safety are the most rigorous in the world”, and, therefore, implicate more efforts made by EU producers. Parliament even retains that organic production, “represents an increased possibility for the growth of European agriculture”, thus it should be supported.

European deputies are also vocalizing their worries about “the influence of large-scale distribution centers on the quality of food products” and the fact that the concentration of supply tends to homogenize and reduce the variety of traditional products. For Parliament, therefore, it seems to be an important moment to react to this problem by “promoting the creation of farmers’ markets” for direct sales between farmers and consumers. Keeping food quality high means, for Strasbourg, the creation of a European agency to control the quality of food products that could work together with the Food Safety Agency (EFSA) in Parma, which defends denominations of origin products like DOP and IGP - the products that are the “cream of the crop” of Italian food production. And it is precisely in defense of DOP and IGP that European deputies have risen to defend the safeguarding of food not only at a European-wide level but at a world-wide level, especially within the context of WTO commercial negotiations.